A new job and a quick update

Sorry no photo's this time either, I hope you'll understand.

 A little over a month ago I started a new at-home  job as an Internet assessor rating and reviewing web pages and video's. It is a very legit job and I have been paid already so no worries. I can't talk about it too much but it is pretty complicated, requires a good amount of studying until you get the hang of it and I had to take 2 very difficult tests to get in. I do about 10 hours a week which is a lot more difficult than it seems when I still have my part time job and a 15 month old who doesn't nap as much anymore. This is hopefully a step to leaving my part time job that just gets worse as the weeks go by.

Have you ever started working on a project just to find out it is going to be a nightmare and there is no other choice but to finish it? Well I finally just finished that nightmare. It was a dress that was intended for my 6 year old niece for a Christmas present. I made the whole bodice, intricate detail, lining and all, to realize it probably would fit a 2 year old. I decreased my seam allowances and tried again, still too small, so now it is going to be a gift for my 3 year old niece. I think the pattern has some sizing problems. It's finally finished, and it's beautiful but I will never, make it again.

I have been working on a homemade cross-stitch stocking for about 10 + years now and I finally finished that also. I'm glad it was my own child who it eventually got finished for.

I finished a lot of my Christmas shopping early and even got a few projects done early, then Jake's family dropped the bomb on me. They decided to do a secret Santa exchange, oh well I've gotten over it and some people will just get an extra gift. I'm not real happy about having to go out in the last minute shopping crowd though.

Savannah started standing on her own last week, it is so exciting to watch her grow and learn. She isn't doing it enough yet to start walking any time soon though.

Longaberger Basket

 We could all use a little extra money to pay for all the Christmas presents right?
My mom is selling a bunch of great Longaberger baskets on Ebay : my ebay I was at her house all night entering them so it would be great if a few of them sold. They are all in excellent condition.

 

This picture below is a 1999 May series Daisy flower basket. It has a plastic lining that allows you to store flowers in the basket.

 

1994 Lilac basket.

                                                                         1999 Christmas

                                                         1999 Horizon of Hope basket with lid    

                                                         1998 Harbor basket. Large basket with lid.

                                                                        1998 Horizon of Hope

                                                                1997 Petunia basket

                                                          1998 Picture Perfect Sweetheart

                                                                         2001 Vintage Blossoms

Thanks for taking a look. Please excuse the dust, it was a very late night and I was too tired to dust them.

Almost Walking

 Due to the hurricane Halloween was on a Monday this year. Because I work Monday nights I wasn't able to take Savannah trick or treating but Jake was. I made this costume for her to look like a peacock. I made a classic tutu and hot glued real peacock feathers into the slip knots that make up the tutu.

 This is the headband that went with it. I folded up some pieces of tulle and glued them to a ribbon. Added a couple scraps of peacock feathers and sewed the ribbon around a stretchy hair tie.

 There are photos out there of her in the costume I just don't have them yet.

Savannah got to play in the leaves. She didn't like it very much.

She is finally learning to walk! For about 2 weeks now she has been pushing everything around that moves. She loves cruising through the kitchen with her walker. We are practicing standing on her own and she seems to enjoy the effort.

Loves pushing her shopping cart.
She still only has 2 teeth and is getting very picky about food. I am not making much anymore because she will like it once then never again.

I have been working on Christmas presents so I don't have any current projects to show.

Hurricane Sandy

 

Hurricane Sandy went right through the bottom of NJ, the state I have lived in for over 20 years now.  I never thought I would experience anything this disastrous living here. I remember my dad driving us through the Mission district in San Fransisco after the earthquake of '89. I can still picture the haunting scenes of houses crumbled to the ground, and I was only 5.  No one ever expects to experience something like that twice in their life. Honestly, I hope that is the last time I have to experience it.

We were sitting in the living room listening to the wind bang against the windows, shaking and cracking the house, listening to things breaking and flying around outside and there was not a thing we could do about it. We lost power around 8 pm and didn't get it back for about 36 hours. Not an easy thing to deal with when you have a small child in the house.

The next day we looked around at the devastation, fortunately we didn't have too much damage. Some broken plaster from our ceiling on the floor, shingles missing and part of our fence broken, but other people fared much worse including my parents.

 

The Weather Channel was broadcasting from the hotel next door to our beach house throughout the storm and Fox news visited that area the next day and showed this and a few other pictures of the inside of our house on the news. Since the state is restricting who can go into the disaster zone it was neat to be able to see what happened to our house.

 Snuggling was necessary since we had no lights or heat.

Savannah go to take her first quad ride with Jake

She didn't like it very much

 

On a happier note, when the power came back I couldn't wait to cook, so I celebrated by making a new kind of pizza. Vodka Rigatoni pizza!

I make pizza about once a week because that was Jake's family tradition, and I had leftover vodka rigatoni.  I make the dough using the recipe in the Joy of cooking. I also make my own sauce, for the vodka sauce I use my regular sauce, 1 cup cream, and 1/3 cup vodka.  It took a while to learn the tricks, so first: prepare the dough on large bread kneading board, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with garlic powder. Then move onto pizza peel with a generous covering of corn meal. Add your toppings. I always add ricotta cheese to my pizza, it just makes it even yummier. Cook for 12 minutes at 475 on a pizza stone.

 

I have been getting Savannah used to feeding herself with a spoon. She does good for a while, then discovers it's easier just to use your hands.  She is learning so much lately.  She puts her cup in the cup holder, clucks her tongue, says no and yes, night night, waves and says bye bye. All this in just a few days. She's also getting a little more confident standing.

 

Giggleberry Fair

It's been one exciting week. My husband had a class in Exton PA to learn how to install Geothermal heating and air units, I got to tag along and take a mini vacation with shopping and a trip to Longwood gardens with my sisters and brother in law. My aunt came to visit over the weekend and we got to do some great fabric shopping, and while my family walked around Peddlers Village my sister and I took our kids to a great place called Giggleberry Fair.
While at Giggleberry Fair my sister took the older kids to the 3 story obstacle course, foam ball mountain and arcade, while I took the 2 younger ones to the discovery area for babies. That had water activities, musical instruments, interactive walls, slides, and lots of other great things to discover.

This is Savannah and cousin Stella on the firetruck

 

 

Attempting to play video games

Riding in a helicopter

and a spaceship. It's been such a fun week and I hope to do it again sometime soon.

 

 

For my nieces birthday I took her to Terhune Orchards for apple picking. It was free! we only had to pay for the apples and that was very reasonable. When we got home we made caramel from scratch, caramel candy apples, apple pie and homemade applesauce. I still had apples left over too.

 

 

Big news to share. Savannah started pulling herself up on September 27. We worked on it the whole day and she finally got over her fear. She pulls up on mostly anything now and cruises around the coffee table, she even climbs up on the couch now. She is supporting her own weight very well now and hopefully will be walking soon.

Sweetest thing

 

Birthday month is almost over (thank goodness) Between Jake's and my family there are 7 birthday's to celebrate in September.

At 1 year Savannah is 17 lbs. 10 oz. (5th% still) 30" (75th%) saying: uh-oh, dada, mama, cat, no, and lots of strange sounds. Loves bath time and giggling. Still not pulling up, standing or walking but crawling all over.

She had a photo shoot with and by Jake and I. We are not the best photographers but I think we got some pretty good ones. I am waiting to post them until after I send them in the thank you cards (yes they are coming I am not ignoring anyone) 

 

For Jake's birthday last weekend we took Savannah to the beach, it was such a beautiful day and the water was warm.  Too bad we didn't bring our swimsuits.  I'm so happy that Savannah loves the sand and isn't scared of the water yet.

This week has been rough on us since Savannah got 2 shots last week, the past 3 days she has been showing the symptoms from that.  I have also had to watch my 2 1/2 yr old niece 2 times this week who is potty training and recently scared of everything.
Savannah's fever spiked today after 3 days of mild ones, so I decided to go check on her when she woke up crying tonight.  She was more loving in those few minutes than ever before.  She put her head on my shoulder, started sucking on her 2 little fingers and fell back asleep.  It was so hard to put her back in bed and it is those moments that make up for all the stress in the world.  If we could just have a moment like that every time we felt stressed or overwhelmed there would never be arguments.

On a different note; I noticed today that my page views have hit 1000. That is so exciting to me and when I have free time again I will work on some more projects and maybe even do a giveaway.  Only problem with this is I have comments and page views but still no followers.

1st birthday

 

 

We had Savannah's first birthday party this past weekend.It ended up raining but we still had a good time. We had lots of things for the kids like, a pool, inflatable water slide, and swing set. Thankfully they were able to use them before the rain started.  That morning didn't go as smoothly as planned due to a nosy neighbor who called the fire dept. on us for having a small fire pit in our yard.

I made Savannah's outfit, getting the idea from a pin here: ballerina onesie tutorial. I made flowers from lace trim stacking the lace on top of itself going back and forth and around to form a flower, used a wide ribbon sewing it to a white onesie to go around just under the chest and tied a bow in the back. After sewing the sleeves of the onesie to form a tank top I then tied the sleeves with a very thin ribbon, and used the leftover lace trim to create ruffles on the butt. The headband was an old pair of her tights cut in half, sewed the ends together and added another lace flower to the top.

 

 Her gift from Jake and I was a handmade sandbox.  I saw a picture on Pinterest a few months ago and insisted that Jake make it for her birthday present.  He just followed the picture as a pattern and we filled it with sand from our beach house.  The project cost about $150 total but it was well worth it.

 I made 2 cakes and had to ice them last minute while everyone was eating dinner.  I saw this picture on pinterest and Jake really wanted me to make it.  I am not a fan of nuts so I used candy instead (big hit with the kids) I wanted to use toasted coconut but I have a family member who wouldn't eat it if I did that.

 And Savannah got her own smash cake.

We had a very rough first 4 months together and she still has some quirks that we have had to just get used to, but it has all been so worth it.  She is the most amazing little girl, she laughs randomly all the time, talks all day long, smiles and shows her love.  She is an adventurous eater, and she has been such a joy. I'm actually happy in some ways she has grown up because she is so much more fun now.

Clutch bag

I came up with a new pattern for my sister in law's birthday present this year. A clutch bag, with a matching zippered wallet or coupon bag (that's what I use mine for).  The clutch idea was all from scratch, no patterns used on this one.  The zippered pouch idea came from a great book my aunt and uncle got me for Christmas last year called

Fresh Fabric Treats. I used the pattern for that, just made it a lot smaller.

I added an applique letter to the pouch to personalize it. My first time doing applique!

Owl Invitation

 Savannah's first  birthday invitations are on their way.  I'm so excited for her party, I know she won't remember any of it and it's pointless for me to do a big thing but I'm a crafter, I just can't help myself.  We are not really doing a theme but I loved the owl invitation I saw on Pinterest here: http://veryverdant.blogspot.com/2012/01/owl-birthday-party-invitations.html  and here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/55886143/diy-owl-invitations. Also all the owl cakes.

I created a combination of the 2 invitations I saw. I was so excited to get them out, then I started hearing feedback that they were falling apart in the mail. I was so upset.

I bought a book of scrapbook paper and made a template, cut out all the pieces and glued them together. Then I punched holes in the wings and tied it with a small piece of ribbon.

The wings unfold to reveal a stamped invite on the belly. That part was a little difficult since I had a hard time finding a stamp to fit.

This summer I've been watching my 5 year old niece on Wednesday's. It has definitely been an experience. I'm the youngest child of 6 and never baby sat, so I was clueless what to do with her. I have tried many crafts but they wouldn't last long enough or she would want to do it a completely different way and I don't have many toys at my house.  Every time she is over, she glares through the glass door of my craft room, asking me why she can't have the stuff in there.  I also found out that when she tells me she can paint her own nails, I need to change her clothes, and cover everything in my house.

This week we went to the craft store together to find some things she would like and she picked out a cross stitch owl. It said age 8+ but I've been cross stitching since I was little.  She was SO EXCITED! It's been a little rough because she feels she has to ask me every time she makes a stitch, but I think she will catch on.

Maine

Every year Jake and I take a vacation to Maine. We stay in one of the family cabin's in Northfield which is 20 minutes from his grandmother and uncle in Machias. There isn't much to do there unless you enjoy hiking, and fishing. We are off the grid for a while with no Internet, phones or T.V while staying there, even the showers are lake water. I can't complain though because it gives us a chance to enjoy the beauty that God created.

This is Bad Little Falls, which is a small but beautiful waterfall right in the town of Machias.

We took a trip to Bar harbor, which is about 1 1/2 hours from town. We ate lunch in the park, did a little window shopping and had ice cream. This is not Savannah's first time eating ice cream, her daddy always shares. She loves it! and surprisingly it doesn't upset her stomach.

Jake is determined to get her to walk by her first birthday but it doesn't look promising as she just started pulling herself up, and will only do it about once per day.

This was a new sight for us. Bog Lake right past Cutler is an amazing sight. We went here on our last day and didn't have much time but I could have spent hours taking pictures and climbing all the rocks.

Jake tried to teach her how to throw rocks. She is very good at throwing now. Sometimes Jake can be a bad influence but he's a big kid so I have gotten used to it.

Back at the cabin it's a tradition to play with Jake's grandma's organ. Savannah loves to sing already too.

We went for a fishing trip on the lake. I thought Savannah should wear a life jacket but it didn't stay on too long. It took a lot of shots to get this smile.

Visiting Jake's grandma Christine. She is in her 90's and I'm so happy Savannah was able to meet her.

This is another new sight for us. Reversing falls in Pembroke. You have to get there about 1-2 hours before the tide changes, then when it does change you get to see the river flowing both ways at the same time. It was difficult to catch on camera, you will just have to go a see for yourself.

Waiting and waiting for the tide to change. We had a picnic there but got bored after a while so we went to Eastport to get some Raye's mustard in the meantime. Raye's mustard is another tradition, they make the mustard right there and you can take a little tour, the mustard is not boiled like the kind you get from the store so you don't get that watery junk. They have so many different flavors and you can try them all right there in the store.