Trick Or Treat!

I have lots of posts to catch up on but I did want to share this one on the actual day so ....

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

hope you had a fun time dressing up and trick or treating. I love that Javan calls this the candy holiday:) 

here's what our two little ones were this year:

Meet Francesco (from Cars 2 fame)

and Tinkerbell Ria 

Our original plan fell through:( they wanted to be Mickey and Minnie but we could not find Minnie in Ria's size and I did not want to fork out $50+ for a Mickey costume. Thought about making them but last week was ridiculously crazy for me and I couldn't get my act together. Maybe next year ... if they are still into that:) A last minute Target run got Javan his costume and he was happy. We found a Cinderella one for Ria but she HATED it. The fabric was so scratchy that she wanted it off immediately. Thanks to Beth, we got a back up and the minute Ria put Tinkerbell on, she was thrilled and wouldn't stop spinning around!

 

We started trick or treating on Centenary Avenue

after Centenary we headed over to the Fall Festival hosted by First Baptist Church Cleveland ... huge would be an understatement! We met up with Stephanie and Nathan. These boys were so so giddy with excitement. If boys have bff's then they are the poster kids for that!

candy loot!

Another fun candy holiday is in the books ... can't believe November here already. Insanity.

~V

Jump Jump

There's nothing super exciting about this post ... we were waiting on J and the kids were being silly jumping up and down so I decided to snap a few pics of them. They were having so much fun ... and looked super cute too :)

must have been dancing here ...

I know most girls just cannot wait til they are mothers and dream of the day they have kids. I was NOT one of those girls. Yes, I wanted kids but I was in no hurry to have them. But, now that I have these two little munchkins in my life, I know without a doubt that being a mother is THE best job I could ever have. It's the hardest job, but the most rewarding. Some days I long to be able get dressed up each morning and be back in an office, using my brain and working hard at something that makes me feel accomplished. Other days I don't mind the sweats or gym shorts and t-shirts I wear every day!

I wish I could have a house full of kids ... I'm not kidding (Jermaine ... save your hallelujahs cos you know its not going to actually happen!). If you know me well, you would know how absurd that is to even say that. I hate messes, I am the queasiest person EVER, I need everything in its place, I love my sleep and my alone time and the list goes on ... but as hard as this is, its so much fun.  I love hearing the random 'I love you mummy' in the midst of playing. I love having Javan say 'Mummy, remember when a long time ago like the other night when you made XXXX for supper? That was the best ever' OR 'I want you to sleep with Ria and I and never, ever leave us' I love Ria's excitement when she sees me put on something she hasn't seen me in all day. If you ever want to feel really pretty I will send Ria over!!! No matter what I change into, I will always hear 'ooooh I like your pretty mummy. spin around. let me see.' I love hearing those sweet little laughs and giggles and even those little squabbles (sometimes!).

I truly LOVE being a mum ... don't ask me where all that came from. I had no intention of writing anything. I just wanted to post those pictures! But, looking at these little masterpieces that I helped create, makes me so thankful for these two little ones. I know what a blessing they are and I can't ever take that for granted.

~V

The River Maze

A few weeks ago I won tickets on Fun and Frugal for The River Maze out towards the Ocoee. Its only about 20mins from the house so Friday night we headed out that way to check it out. The maze is HUGE. We didn't go through it since it was getting dark and the temps were dropping rather quickly, but we checked out the other fun stuff on the farm. We opted out of the hayride to the pumpkin patch as well ... mainly cos it was so cold! Yes, we're wimps! We should have taken a little blanket with us:)

I'm glad I won tickets to this place cos even though we had a fun time, I am pretty certain we wouldn't have gone there on our own.You have to pay for all the extra activities which I didn't think was cool.So yay for free tickets and a fun family night out!

~V

Doctor Doctor

I could hear the kids giggling so I followed that sweet sound and found them inside Javan's closet ... playing doctor! This pic cracks me up ... Javan has that 'oops we just got busted nervous smile' and Ria thinks its hilarious I found them.

Jermaine thought it was pretty cute that they were in pink and blue and had matching stethoscopes!
~V

Pumpkin Painting

We have yet to try our hand at carving pumpkins! I took the easy route and let the kids paint their pumpkins:)

'Paint inside the lines Ria.'

'Ok Mummy.'

See how well that went:)

It was simple and easy and they loved it!
~V

Material Girl

One thing I have really been enjoying this year is sewing. I wish I had more time to really work at it and to try out different things but overall I am happy with what I have learned so far. More than anything its really very relaxing. I have conquered my fear of sewing pants and now I just need to get over my hiccup of sewing something with sleeves. Its not hard to do so I hope to give it a try soon. I really enjoy appliqueing and I want to learn to monogram. I know its not hard but since I have to switch out the sewing and monogramming attachments on my machine, I have been lazy to try it out. Here are a few pics of some things I have made ... I love taking pics of the stuff cos I can see how much I have improved.

PJ's ... this was the first one I made back in Feb. There isn't much I can make for Javan so pj's it is and he loves them. He picked out the fabric (Cars, Toy Story, Mickey Mouse and he wanted Ria to have matching Minnie Mouse ones!) and he loved wearing them all summer. He's already asking me to make him some warm pj's:)  

Dresses: This is the very first pillowcase dress I made in December. I have made several of them now and I love matching fabrics and trying out different combos of them. It doesn't take too long to do as well which is why I love it!

here are a few others

T-shirt dresses: first type of dress I tried. Haven't made any since January but Ria just started wearing a few that I made and I want to make some more! they look so cute on her:)

Pants:  I've made a lots of these, both with ruffles and without. I was so nervous to try pants cos of all the seams but I've really improved a lot and I can actually do pants a lot quicker than dresses or skirts.

Skirts: I love making skirts too! My very first one was trial and error. I just had an idea in my mind and cut and stitched (I do that a lot!) but I messed up the casing. I've gotten much better at this!

My 'trial n error' skirt

 casing I messed up. I had to take it apart and redo but once I figured it out, it was pretty cute!

Layered skirt - spring

summer skirt - i think i mentioned this in an earlier post but i had made ria a skirt like this and appliqued a t-shirt to match and I ended up making 7 sets of these!

Made this one for fall

I've made several outfits (matching pants and tops or skirts with a matching applique top)

 

latest thing I've sewn ... made this for Ria last week. The pants are whale corduroy fabric and its hard to tell cos of how she's posing but the applique is an elephant.

Appliques: I love doing appliques. It takes A LOT of practice and I am far from perfect and I need to practice tons more but its fun.

This was the very first one I did. I ended up making several of them for the Cars play date we had back in July.

made these for a baby shower

 this one was my fave cos the stitching was perfect! yes, I'm bragging :)

not perfect but still practicing!

I've also made lots of misc things like a diaper case using leftover fabric, appliques on burp cloths, this tool belt

and curtains

I am going to do curtains for our bedroom and lounge/living room soon (just waiting on fabric to go on sale!) and my neighbour wants me to make her a futon cover (that will be pretty adventurous).

I've made a few aprons (it's hard to photograph them)

 probably hard to see, but I tried a fun stitch on this one and now I want to use it on everything!

I also repurposed this dress:

into this skirt for Ria

My biggest sewing project was the little saris I made for Ria's friends for her Bollywood Bash. I wish I had better pics of those cos they turned out better than I had imagined. I messed up several but I later fixed - Ria loves to play dress up with them.

One thing I need to do is really learn how to use patterns. I browse a lot of craft and sewing blogs and there are tons of free tutorials that I have saved so I use ideas from there or I basically just grab something out of the kids closet, place it on the fabric and cut. My aunt is probably going to give me a little lecture after reading this part but don't worry Aunty Jess I have paper to cut patterns out. It's been sitting in the garage since February. I'm just being super lazy to sketch and cut! I'll get to it ... soon:)

My next project is winter jammie's for the kids and I have a few Christmas ideas I hope I get to try. Javan has asked me several times to make both him and his Daddy matching Cars pj's ... maybe a good Christmas gift, though not sure what J will think of that!

I've told Jermaine the sewing machine was the best gift he's given me ... it was a complete surprise and I love it:)
~V