Birthday Party

We went to a super fun birthday party today for one of Sydney's friends. It was a mini golf, race track, and kid's fair type rides. It was perfect because only the kids could ride and they were totally age appropriate for 3-5 year olds. Here's Sydney in the ferris wheel. She's in the blue cart.

In the tea cups with the birthday girl.

The airplane ride. Waving to all her fans.

Now this was her favorite ride. I wasn't too sure how she would do at first but with all the peer pressure she hopped right on and loved it! It basically just takes them up and drops them a bit, over and over. She smiled the whole time. We did ride multiple times on this one.

And in the swings that take you around in a circle. They had a few other rides too. We are definitely going back!

So I haven't put up many craft pictures lately. It's not because I haven't been doing anything - far from it. I'm just a little slow on the uploading. Hopefully this week I'll show you some new stuff.

Monday Randomness

So we had another gourd pop up on our fence while we were at the wedding. This time I snagged it. I still have no idea what to do with it but I have it. haha. I feel bad though because my neighbors are obviously growing them for some reason and I have no reason to keep it. I made Sydney pose with it one morning this weekend so you could really see how big these things get. It's much larger than the first one.

And if you want to make someone's day, you decorate cookies. I told Sydney we could decorate the cookies after her nap...not a good idea. She woke up early and came out immediately asking for the cookies. : ) She knew what she wanted. I found these cupcake cookie cutters at Crate & Barrel. I thought they were too cute to pass up. Sydney is quite smitten with them too.

Seaside Stable Pumpkin Patch

I was pretty excited when I stumbled on this pumpkin patch at a local stable. Love that internet! : ) I have been trying to go to events that have pony rides but it never fails that the ponies never show up for one reason or another. It was an absolutely beautiful day with cool weather. Syd has been real sick all week so it was really nice to get out of the house and enjoy the sunshine.

They had lots of horses, ponies, goats, dogs, and a piglet. We were able to feed the horses. Syd was pretty scared of feeding the big horses so she stuck to feeding a pony.

Oh man, she was unbelievably excited to ride around the stable on the pony. She said it was her favorite part of the day.

She is such a big girl in this picture.

They had a few other things to do: bounce house, face painting, pumpkin painting. There wasn't a whole lot of people out and it was local so everything was so personable and low key.

They also had hay rides provided by these two horses. And here's me at 31 weeks prego.

Let's just hope this cooler weather stays!

Flower Girls

This past weekend, we went to my step-sister's wedding. Sydney and Karalyn were the little flowergirls for the ceremony. Would they do it? Stage-fright? Crying? You've seen all the America Funniest Video wedding clips. Maybe we would win the next 10 grand! The anticipation! Here's the girls on Friday's rehearsal. They did great at praticing.

The "forced" smiles and bribery in their hands. : )

On Saturday, we had some time to kill. The whole family rented out the bed & breakfast next to the ceremony/reception center. The bed & breakfast was absolutely wonderful. We did a little hiking around the grounds.

And swinging. I love her face. She did ask to go high!

Wedding time! Here's the girls all dressed up.

The girls and Kari, the beautiful bride.

Some of the fam.

Now, to the moment we've all been waiting for! Did they do it?

YES, they did!!!

Whew! Congrats to Kari and Uncle "New" Matt. You know, since there are now 2 Matts in the family.

Texas State Fair

Sydney and I made a quick trip to Dallas and Austin last weekend to attend one of my college roommate's wedding. Our first stop was to Dallas so the cousins could play. We decided to go to the opening day of the State Fair. You can't go to the Fair without seeing Big Tex!

The girls.

We first went to the feeding/petting area. They had so many baby animals to feed and pet. A baby giraffe, zebra, camel, piglets, calves, etc. You name it, they had it. Here's a few pics.

Sydney feeding the mom camel.

This picture makes me laugh - it's the camel.

You can't forget about all the fried food. You name it, they fry it! Karen had a list of all the new fried food we had to try. Here is the fried butter. I was very hesitant to even try it because, well frankly, it sounds like a heart attack. It tasted like a buttered roll or croissant. Much better than I had expected.

They had this kid's farm area so you can learn about where your food comes from. Very fun and hands on. Here are the girls planting seeds.

We let the girls ride some rides. Here the "hot air balloon" ride. They are such big girls going by themselves!

Syd was SO adamant about riding this roller coaster. I have no idea why. Because of my "condition" I couldn't ride so Aunt Karen to the rescue! Thank you! She loved it.

I have no pictures from Austin. Pathetic, I know. But I want to thank Nonnie and Pa for babysitting Sydney for 2 nights so I could hang out with my college friends. THANK YOU!

Syd's New Headband

Here's a new picture of Sydney with her new headband I made. It's made out of fabric rosettes like my necklace. I should have gotten a better close-up...ah well. Have a great weekend everyone.

September's New Felt Food

So I have been working super hard to get ready for the holiday season in my Etsy shop. Every Christmas has been extremely busy (especially last year) and I vowed to not get stressed out this year. And the only way for me not to get stressed out is to make lots of food in advance so I never have the "I'm so behind" feeling. Well, you should see our guest room now! That will be a whole other post. : ) Anyway, so along with stocking up on the "regulars" I've made a whole lot of new designs. Here is just a sampling - yes, there's more not shown. I will be putting them up in my shop all during the month of September.

Key Lime Pie:

Lemon Meringue Pie: Hot Dog (from the Chicago Children's Museum):

Bread Loaves (wheat, white, and rye):

Mini Baguette:

All my breakfast foods in one listing (a popular request):

Fail Dogs

Oh my word! Matt just told me about this website: http://www.faildogs.com/ and I have just been laughing so hard at these pictures or videos. There are too many great ones to show you so you'll just have to check out the site but here's a couple I found quite amusing. And make sure you check out the titles, it makes it even funnier.

Can you imagine this big dog in your dryer? Or walking into a room and finding this:

Mac & Cheese

She looks so sweet and innocent.

But in fact, she's a lot of silliness. This is her lunch she is wearing on her fingers. There are macaroni & cheese shells. At least they aren't olives!

Cupcakes & Canoes

Just some more pictures of our trip to see my parents. Every trip now includes a treat to the local cupcake shop. Sydney picked out strawberry for her dessert.

They were quite yummy! The choices were: carrot cake (me), strawberry (Syd), blueberry cake with lemon frosting (grandma), and chocolate cake with mint frosting (Syd picked it out for grandpa).

Can I just tell you that Sydney got spoiled with attention from my parents! She absolutely loved it. As soon as she would wake up she would ask for grandma. As soon as my dad got home she would follow him around like a puppy. And just like any good grandparent, they did whatever she wanted to do! As you can see here, Sydney wanted to go out on the canoe.

What's this? UPDATED.

This is growing on my back fence. It's a vine that my neighbors have planted so I have no idea what it is. It's actually about 2 feet long! Is it a cucumber? Can I eat it? I actually have been slightly peeved that I have to continually trim these vines that come over from my neighbors yard. I guess if I get a cucumber from it, it won't be so bad. I've done some research but nothing conclusive.

Update: Okay, I did some more research and it's appears to be a penguin gourd or at least a gourd of some sort. Did you know that there is a National Gourd Society?! You do now. : ) And actually, I trimmed the vines on my side of the fence but left the gourd and woke up this morning to find it missing and more vines trimmed. So I think my neighbors took the gourd. Which is okay by me. Other than drying it and painting it, what do you do with a gourd?

Mystery solved.