Latest HPA Pieces

I finally got some orders shipped out today, and wanted to share them! I can't say that I've been busy with HPA, but just life in general, so it's taking me much longer than necessary to get them out, and I fully know that i'm slacking.

But, here they are...

The above is a tutu bag, that is perfect for dance! But, they can also be designed for trick or treating and other holiday's, and even school!
GG was able to get a shirt dress made for one of our best customers :) I really hope that she loves it!
And, finally, we have the October bow of the month club bows finished and shipped! I went with a halloween theme, but I didn't want it to be scary or too theme, so I just stuck with the basic colors. Hope these members love them!

Chocolate Chip Oreo Cookies

Yet again, via pintrest! Thanks so much to Lovin' From the Oven for posting the original recipe.

I baked these this week, and they are fabulous! And, not so good for trying to loose this baby weight, but I suggest that everyone bake these!

Here's the recipe (it's super easy!)

Preheat oven to 350. Cream 1 stick of softened butter, 6 tbsp sugar, and 6 tbsp brown sugar.

Add 1 egg and 1 tsp. vanilla.

In a separate bowl, mix together 1 1/4 c. of flour, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp. salt.

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the other and mix all together.

Stir in 11 crushed oreos, and 1 c. of chocolate chips.

Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a cookie sheet and bake 10 minutes.

Fabulous! Seriously y'all, you must try these!

Ghost Feet

Original idea was found via pintrest (of course) and the girls and I had so much fun making it!

Thankfully, Hobby Lobby had their canvas' on sale last week and I picked up a few. I painted this one black, and then I painted a foot on each girl and placed it on, upside down. Using a stencil, I painted the "B" and hand painted the letter o's. I also added the year.

Love this simple Halloween decor! I'm going to attach a ribbon and hang it up.

And, it will be so much fun pulling this out year after year and seeing how much their feet have grown!

Fall in Our House

It's fall here, as will hopefully be evident with our cooler temperatures this week! It's been in the 80s, and maybe an occasional 70s day, but the next three days will be down in the 60s. Makes me feel like i'm in Indiana again!

I haven't shared my fall decor yet, so I thought tonight would be a great night to do so.
My sofa table just has a few of my fall candy bowls (with no candy, because I have sneaky three year old hands in my house). I love the acorn and squirrel bowl, because they've been with me since my college days.
Our front entry is a plethora. I left my white candlesticks, and added a self made floral arrangement, our candy dish for Halloween, a candle my grandmother made, a bowl, and a pumpkin centerpiece that DJ's step mom gave to us.
On the floor beside the table are two wicker pumpkins, and a large white canister of glittery pumpkins- I love anything that sparkles! Above it is our Halloween countdown, that we may start the week before Halloween! I added the ribbon to it, because it just came on some gold pipe cleaner looking stuff.
I have this red metal shelf on our kitchen, and, as you can tell the homeowners of this house, wanted fall all year long, and painted it in shades of brown and red. But, I placed my Pilgrims and another fall candy dish.
I use an old sewing stand with a butcher block as a sideboard in the kitchen. I placed yet another candy dish (I have way too many of these, and every year I tell myself I'm going to get more fall decor that is NOT a candy dish), and my large serving platter. Along with my squirrel and nut salt & pepper shakes.

I must say, that a lot of my fall decor is sentimental because my sorority mascot is a squirrel. Many of these pieces were purchased for me in college, and I love digging them out again!

Hope your house is getting all festive as well, and that you're enjoying some cooler temps too!

Weekend ReCap

I was so excited for Friday, because that meant that our weekend had arrived! Last week was long and very busy work wise, so it was nice to enjoy these last two days with DJ and the girls.

I'm loving our home football game schedule here. Typically, DJ doesn't get home on a Friday night until 11 pm, but here, he's home around 7:30, because TU holds their game day meetings on Saturday mornings. So, DJ and I actually get to spend a Friday night together! But, I did spend part of the evening making hair bows.

Saturday morning was spent cleaning and baking. I made homemade applesauce, and went ahead and froze some of it, because MC will be starting baby food in about 6 weeks! I also made homemade tortilla's, and I swear I'll never buy a package of store bought again! These were super easy, and they taste great.

DJ was home for about two hours on Saturday afternoon, between morning meetings, and time for him to be at the office. We watched the Michigan game, and sadly the Wolverine's lost their first game of the season.

After DJ left, the rest of the afternoon was spent getting ready for the TU game.
G decided to wear her cheerleading outfit again, and I put MC in G's first football dress. It was a little bit, but I want her to wear it a little more than G did... it was just to cold for G to wear it to our BSU games while we were there.
G wanted to see daddy before the game, so we called him down from his 'office' and managed to get our first family picture of the season!

We're fortunate enough to be able to go inside the coaches offices to watch the football game, which allows me a chance to actually watch and not be afraid that G will fall off the bleachers or that she'll run too far. She has a great time playing with the other kids on staff.

We only stayed through the third quarter. I needed to get the girls in bed and get ready for our family pictures that we had today!

If you're in the Tulsa area, I highly recommend Madison Vining Photography. I first Madison on an online mom's group, and fell in love with her photography style. So when we found out we were moving to Tulsa, I was secretly excited to get to meet her and that she would be able to photograph our family! She has the cutest little two year old boy and an adorable two month old sweet baby girl!

Our pictures went great and I can't wait to see how they turned out. We met at the Tulsa Garden Center, and i'm thinking we'll do photos again there in the spring- at least for the girls, because the grounds were gorgeous!

We promised G ice cream if she cooperated through pictures, and for the most part she did very well- although, she wanted to be a camera hog during parts of it!

After ice cream, we came home and I somehow managed to get both girls down for a nap, and I napped with them. I will say that this was not the most fun process, but i'm thankful that we all finally fell asleep.
After our naps, I took G outside so she could paint. She's been asking to paint a canvas for her bedroom, so I picked a small one up at Hobby Lobby and gave her colors that matched her bedroom and let her paint away.
MC hung out in her exersaucer while we sat outside to paint and then play. The weather was gorgeous in the high 80s, and I just keep remind myself that it would never be this nice right now in Indiana- there's no where else i'd rather be than here!

Gs Mini Recital

G has been taking dance for another 6 weeks now! I'm glad that I kept her in it after the summer session. She told me she preferred gymnastics, but we had already purchased the ballet and tap shoes, so I wanted her to stick it out through the year.

She loves going and she's learned a lot already. Her shuffle step is much improved! Her class did a mini-recital yesterday, and they got to wear little costumes.
I think they were suppose to be 'superstars'.
G's made a lot of new friends, and I've even met a couple as well, plus, it's nice having some adult conversation guaranteed every week!
She did much better keeping up with her dance this time compared to this summer.
She told me that her most favorite dance move is the shuffle step.
She was so excited that her baby sister was there to watch her dance!

G's growing....

G will be 4 years old in January- wow! I thought I'd update on how she's developing....

If you ask her what her favorite color is, she'll name every single color imaginable. I guess she can't make up her mind.

She's very in to interviewing DJ and I and 'writing' it in her notebook. She'll ask us what our favorite house is and what our favorite color is.

She can spell her first name, and is able to identify all upper and lower case letters.

She can read a few sight words: I, stop, car, mom, dad, book, to, a, the

She knows her days of the week.
She knows that you should stop, drop, and roll if you catch on fire.

Her t.v. show of choice right now is Signing Times, and she is picking up on some of the signs that were her first language.

She changed her mind four times on her Halloween costume. I won't reveal what she's going to be, but she had wanted: Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, and finally Strawberry Shortcake.

She is able to write some letters: A, O, T, G, R, E, F

She can snip paper, but I haven't tried to get her to cut on a straight line yet.

She prefers fruit and vegetables over meat, but you must have ranch dip on her plate.
Her favorite princess is Cinderella.

She loves to look at her books, and play with my 'speech kiddo' games. So much so, that I had to put a child proof lock on the door!

She also enjoys brushing her teeth, but honestly, she's just sucking the toothpaste off the toothbrush, and if you aren't watching she'll keep reloading the toothbrush with toothpaste and sucking it off.

Her breakfast of choice is usually a Special K bar, and she loves fruit snacks. She also tries to convince me to give her fruit snacks for breakfast.

She is able to steer her princess car, and pedal her tricycle.

It's just amazing how she's growing and how kind she can be, but also how smart she is, and hearing the things come out of her mouth..... last week, she stomped into my bathroom and said, "I'm so disappointed in you!" Because, I took away her medicine from her, as she was trying to get it opened. And, on Sunday, she exclaimed that she no longer wanted to be my child, only daddy's, because she was mad at me!

I love how much she's learning, and how excited she is about it!

MC is 4 months!

Well, she's actually 4 1/2 months. I'm about two weeks late taking these pictures. The weekend she turned 4 months, DJ and I were in Boise, and this past weekend we went home.

It's been an amazing 4 months, that have gone by entirely too fast. It amazes me how much faster she is growing up compared to when we had G.

MC weighs a little over 15 pounds, and is 24 inches long.

She rolled over from her back to belly for the first time the exact day that she had her four month doctor appointment and shots. That was a Thursday night, and by Sunday, she rolled from her belly to her back. I wasn't prepared for that to happen so close together.
She is practicing sitting up, and I do believe that she'll sit up before G did at 6 months. She still eats every 3 to 3 1/2 hours. And we have not started any form of solid foods. She goes to daycare for a few hours each day, and I'm so fortunate to be able to pick her up around 1 or 2 and spend a few alone hours with her.

She smiles a lot, and still makes a growling noise, but she has also started to laugh. She loves her pacifier and is beginning to try to guide it toward her mouth.

She also enjoys playing in her exersaucer.

If we were using disposables, she'd be in a size 3 diaper. And, she is able to wear 6 and some 9 month clothes.

She still wakes up at night, and it was at 4 months that we let G CIO at night, but we haven't been as strict about CIO with MC. She is usually ready for bed around 7:30 or 8, and I feed her around 10:30. She typically wakes around 3, and I've started to go back to put her pacifier in, rather than feeding her every time. (Honestly, it depends on how she did that day with eating.) If she's gone all night without eating, then she'll wake up around 6:45 or 7:00 am.

During the day she takes about a 1 1/2 to 2 hour nap, and hates to be woken up from the nap!

She eats about 5 oz. in her bottles at daycare, and we've just upped those in the last week.
DJ and I were discussing the other day, that in a month and a half, we'll have to start baby food, and that just terrifies me! Only because it makes me feel that she's growing way too fast and that it's not going to slow down!

I think G is enjoying MC more. She has already told me that MC took a toy from her, or that MC wasn't nice to her. She also has a nickname for her, which DJ and I have taken to calling her that as well. And, she's still very protective of her, and wants to know where MC is when G walks into the room and can't see her.

I can't wait to see if they get along later down the line!

In the mean time, we'll enjoy having MC this size, and watching her grow and develop.

More Weekend

We made it to my parent's house Friday afternoon. Since we had a wedding to go to the next day, both girls needed a bath...I love that G made herself a beard, because I remember doing that all the time as a kid.... I had to snap a picture.
MC got her bath in the tub.
MC got to hang out with her great-grandma before the wedding, and gave her all the smiles in the world!
Which, of course, my grandma loved!
And, this is how you keep a baby quiet in the car..... well, at least try to keep one quiet.

Weekend Wedding

Not mine, but my cousin's.... and, I must say we had a fabulous weekend, and enjoyed spending time with family that we hadn't seen in a while. I'll also add that i'm super excited that we live close enough now to make these quick trips home!

Now, on to the wedding festivities!
I love these little bells they had or us to ring on their way out- super cute idea!
And the grooms cake- fabulous! My cousin is a duck hunter, as is the rest of the men in my family, and their baker did a fabulous job with his cake- even the duck was edible! Plus, the bride & groom brought it all the way from Fayetteville to his parents house three hours away, and it traveled very well! I also love the 'cake stand' they put it on.
Melissa, the bride, chose vibrant colors for her outdoor wedding.
I had seen this on pintrest, and I loved it! So, it was fun pulling up and seeing that Melissa had probably seen it as well. Super cute for an outdoor wedding.
MC got lots of snuggle time with her Aunt Jan, and I was super excited to get a bit of a break!
This is me, with my cousin Hannah. We were both sporting our cowgirl boots! As my brother said, I'm a true Okie now that i've bought boots. But, honestly, it was a casual wedding, and I wanted a casual look, plus I bought that dress for a football game and realized I probably won't actually wear it while i'm also carrying a baby with me, and I thought the dress would look cute with some boots. And, the grass was dry and dusty- so glad, I didn't wear sandals, so my feet wouldn't get yuck.
The groom's nephew, couldn't make it, so G was able to stand in and carry the sign that says, "Here Comes the Bride"..... loved it! I had also seen this on pintrest, and thought it was the most adorable idea ever; looks like the bride did too!
My uncle, the grooms father, actually officiated the ceremony. He also did the first part of mine and DJ's ceremony, and he's married other family members. I've enjoyed watching him at these various ceremonies, but seeing him tear up at his own son's wedding, was pretty fabulous. Nice to know that the guy who teased me mercilessly as a child, actually has a soft side.
Here's the four of us at the wedding.
And, with my brother, his wife, and my cutie patootie niece.