I want to be a part of it....

New York, New York.  My husband surprised me with a weekend trip to NYC to celebrate my 40th birthday.  He told me the night before we left.  I have never been so stunned or humbled that someone would do something like this for me.  We were there the 1st weekend of November and I think it may have been the best weekend of my life.  I love him so.

Josh won tickets to see David Letterman.  So fun.  The guest was Bill Cosby.

Rockefeller Center, just outside of our hotel

I finally got to see the Statue of Liberty.  A life-long dream.

Got to see my first Broadway Show, another dream of mine.  Loved it.

This was the view when we walked out of Macy's.  We then headed to Mesa Grill for dinner, Bobby Flay's restaurant.  

I loved every second of this trip and I love my man so much that he did this for me.  For me.  It still blows my mind.  I think about it every day.  We did so much more that is not pictured, but I wanted to keep this post smallish.  It has been so long since I have blogged at all.  Thanks for sharing.

Mother's Day 2011

We had a wonderful Mother's Day, definitely blog worthy. It started with my husband and kids making breakfast for me. Eggs, biscuits, and fruit. Delicious! Then church, which had a spectacular tribute to Mothers with the "Mommy Rhapsody", and a very calm class with my special needs kids. They were a delight, all excited about the upcoming Joy Prom this Friday. After church, a quick bite from Jimmy John's and a trip to the Durham Museum of Life and Science. The pictures here were taken in their Butterfly House. It was a great day for walking around the outside zoo/park like setting of the museum, low 70's and mostly sunny. The museum closed at 5:00, so we left and had a light dinner, then topped it off with DQ - a Reese's blizzard for me. Yum. Back home to a happy dog and a phone call to my sister, which I hate that I only get to see her a couple times a year. Started a new book (after finally finishing Jane Eyre), and right to sleep. A great family day. Perfect. I feel very blessed to be a Mom. Hope your Mother's Day was just as great!

last summer's ruffled halter

Last summer I made this adorable ruffled halter for my daughter and never got around to blogging about it. It was a free downloadable pattern from Oliver & S that was featured in Stitch magazine's summer issue I believe, and was the main reason I purchased the magazine. I used fabric from Heather Bailey's Nicey Jane line which debuted last spring. (love it!) I love how the halter turned out and it was pretty simple and quick to make too, a bonus. I can definitely see more of these halters in her future this summer!

**I snapped this picture with my phone while we were waiting for a table at a delicious restaurant (Mango Mango's) in St. Augustine, FL. You can see she brought all of her essentials to the restaurant: purse, blankie, and sass.

**Oh, and one more thing. I got this fabric at a steal for $5/yard and didn't even use an entire yard for this halter, so this cost me less than 5 bucks! See the value in learning to sew?!!

**Oh, and if you ever go to Mango Mango's, definitely order the corn cakes.

more on Savannah

So last week we drove to Savannah Thursday afternoon and spent the evening and all day Friday before returning home late Friday night. Josh was there for a conference that was held Friday and so I was left to entertain the kids. First I will say that Savannah does not offer much for kids at this time of year. However, it is full of candy and open parks, so that sufficed. I thought I would take them on the trolley, but they weren't thrilled with the idea so why do that when it is so expensive anyway. We did a lot of walking, looking at monuments, and there was one particular park we played in for a good portion of the day.

We ate lunch at The Lady & Son's of Paula Deen fame. I must say that it was quite good, but at the same time I was disappointed and this is why. Last time we were in Savannah it was 2001. This was before Paula Deen was on the Food Network. We went to the restaurant then and I remember it being SO good. Well, now they have changed locations and it all seemed so automated, and the experience was just not the same 'taking the elevator to dine on the third floor' as it was in her original smaller restaurant. I enjoyed the food I will say, although I am sure it was better 10 years ago.

As the day went on the wind picked up. We spent a lot of time down on River Street, which is literally right on the river. As it neared 5:30 and it was getting colder and colder (remember I thought the high was going to be sunny and 70's and dressed accordingly) we began to stop into more and more shops to get out of the wind. One of these was Savannah Bee Company. Oh my goodness, what a delight and a great find. They had a kids corner for the kids to play in so I was able to shop around a bit. I loved everything and ended up buying hand and nail salve, soap, and 4 different kinds of honey. I never really thought about there being different flavors of honey before, but wow, I tried several at their honey tasting bar and I must say that it was hard to narrow it down to 4 flavors. They also had this cookbook, by Gena Knox, which has some recipes that feature their honey, and such beautiful photography. I just ordered it today and I am so excited to get it in a few days.

Yesterday was a sad day as we finished our caramel and pecan popcorn, but I still have 1/2 of a praline left which I intend on eating this afternoon! Hopefully I'll be back soon with some actual sewing stuff. The picture of the kids was taken on Friday on some (very steep) steps that take you down from the main street level to River Street.

Changing goals

Hey there. Yeah, I know it's been a while. I've been watching all of you keep up your blogs with your fabulous ideas and projects and have been staring at the same Santa pictures on my blog knowing that no one is probably even looking anymore. We've been under a LOT of stress here, but I am hopeful that things are going to get better soon. I've been very, very busy. We participated in a kids consignment sale mid January in which we had to rent a U-Haul to take all of our stuff over to the sale location. That means that we had a ton of stuff pulled out from everywhere and a whole U-haul's worth of stuff to be tagged and recorded. It was at that point we learned some unfortunate news and have been completely stressed out ever since. So our house was left in a state of disarray from all of the stuff we had pulled out and had piled up everywhere. Awesome. Then I went to St. Augustine, FL for a few days at the beginning of February to visit my parents who were there for Jan and Feb this winter. It was a nice change of scenery. We also just visited Savannah, GA this past weekend so that was nice also. Would have been nicer if I had brought a jacket. So, between all of this and the basketball, karate, inline hockey, ballet, tap, and cheerleading, plus homeschooling; I have been kind of busy with not much time to sew. I have however been working on a quilt for my son who will turn 10 this month. I had hoped to get it completely finished to give to him on his birthday but I have had to change my goal to hoping that I get the top finished to give to him. Sometimes we have to change our goals, and that is ok. I am hoping to have some more things to share soon. I will try to post about the quilt and maybe some things from last year that I never got around to posting! Sorry for such a melancholy post, such is life sometimes, but things are gonna get better!

The above picture of the kids was taken in Savannah this past Friday. I was so inspired by this old stone wall next to the cobblestone street. Savannah is such an interesting city. Maybe I will post more about our trip later. On a side note, the dress Nora Kate is wearing is one I made for her November 2009. You may have seen it before. I love that she can still wear it paired with leggings even though it is a little short to wear as a dress now. Pattern was my own.

The other picture was taken in downtown historic St. Augustine, FL. If you are familiar with the area, you may recognize the old Fort which you can see in the background of the photo. This was one of the many street performers, one of the things I love about that city. This guy's name was Jamey Turner, and he called his instrument the 'glass harp'. He was amazing.

visiting Santa

My husband's workplace always has Santa night every Christmas and all the kids of the employees can come and visit Santa. It is always the same man, and he is so sweet to the kids. One year we stayed a little later in my husband's office and when we went out to leave he was in his truck right next to our van getting ready to leave. He had obviously forgotten his sleigh that night or else he was just preparing it for the big trip and had to use his truck that night. Anyway, when he saw us coming, he laid down in the front seat of his truck so that the kids couldn't see him and stayed that way until we left. So sweet. It was funny because my son's list this year was 6 pages long. He shortened it before going to see Santa by going through it and highlighting the things that he *really* wanted. He had things on there like "my very own cruise ship", "my very own mansion", "a water slide running through our house and out into the back yard", "bringing Abby back to life" (our little Westie dog that died almost 2 years ago), "bringing Grandpa Gene back to life". It was very sweet but a little self indulgent at the same time. Gotta love him. My daughter for the first time wrote out some of her list. She is able to make all of her letters this year and wrote out 4 items in addition to pictures she cut out of magazine ads and pasted on to paper. So cute. So, here are pictures from this year...

**Oh, and I did not make her dress. It is from Patsy Aiken Chez Ami, a direct sales kids clothing company based here in Raleigh. They have their factory here and have an outlet sale for one week every month with great deals on their clothes. A perk of living here!

The Christmas Dress 2010

Ok, I finished this dress on Tuesday and made the headband on Wednesday while the kids were at their PE/Art class (we're homeschooling now - more to come on that later). I'm very happy with how it turned out if I do say so myself. Fabrics used for the dress were all from Anna Maria Horner. The dress fabrics were from her new collection, Innocent Crush; and the sash was made from some of her first line of luxurious voiles, Little Folks collection. Can you tell I'm a fan of hers?! The pattern used was one that I have created myself. I've posted several variations of it in the past here, here, and here. New features of the pattern used on this dress were the 3/4 length sleeve (embellished with lace), and of course, the sash. I used a tutorial that I just happened to come across online to make the headband, and I can't remember where it was, but basically you just wrap fabric around a pipe cleaner and twist it to your desired size, then sew to a flower cut from felt and attach to your headband. If I can find the tutorial again, I will edit to give credit to that person. Hope you like. I'm thinking of listing it in my shop for a limited time! ***Rosette Headband Tutorial by Sew Hip Mama