The Eye of the Tiger

She was a lion last year (neighbors are still shaking in their boots from her terrible roar). This year she will terrorize the community as a TERRIBLE TIGER!!

practicing her ROAR on her brother

We headed out to the local Halloween Trail last night. So much fun, it reinforced why I love where we live. There were lots of familiar faces from the Parks & Recreation  department, many who came over to admire Lila & Elijah's costumes.

Elijah was a black & white puppy (it's a hand-me-down, I won't tell him if you won't). At first he seemed thrilled with his costume:

Once the hat was donned, things started to turn ugly:

After 45 minutes of games and great costume-watching, his mood had lifted and we were graced with that beautiful smile again:



There was an adult-sized Lion there to represent the Lions club, or something like that. Lila was FASCINATED. She decided that the two great hunters of the jungle should meet:

Totally unrelated, but I'd like to recognize my amazing hubby. Our backyard patio was a disaster. Kind of bean-shaped, it had another bean-shaped hole in the middle that once had a tree, but was now just a big pile of dirt. The roots from the felled tree had lifted up massive portions of the patio, making it unsafe for little feet. It was also just a huge patio, leaving very little actual yard in the back.

So, hubby dearest redesigned the patio, demolished the old one, and installed a new one using the old bricks. Behold:

Isnt' it gorgeous? Wonderful design, and flat as can be, allowing for our wee ones to play without fear of tripping. See all the dirt area? That will be lovely green grass!!! Cannot wait. How amazing is my husband?!

What falls in the fall...

I do love the fall. I love football season, the smell of the leaves, the crispiness of the air, apple picking, pumpkin carving, and the anticipation of all the holidays on the horizon! Now that I have two adorable wee ones, this season is infinitely sweeter. Watching Lila prowl around her in Halloween costume is priceless (pictures forthcoming, I promise). Her excitement is palpable. All car rides are now peppered with "Mommy! I see red leaves! Mommy! I see orange leaves!" Perhaps Elijah is a bit too young to understand, but that doesn't damper my happiness at seeing him experience his first Halloween with his family.

The perfect start to celebrate the harvest? Pumpkin patches!

I think this smile is 100% Lila.

She won this herself! Threw a ball and hit a flying pumpkin!

Hee.

Lila & Mimi look for the Queen Bee.

Maybe you'll be big enough next year, Doodlebug.

That's more like it!

Look at those curls bounce...

Inspecting a possible pumpkin with Mimi.

Lila with her loot!

This place was amazing. Check it out!

Eli was in the carrier so I realized there were no pics of my beautiful boy! This must be remedied...

Those eyes.

Look out, he's on the move! Seriously, this boy gets into everything.

What? I like mac & cheese.

A simple game of peek-a-boo was all it took...

...to lift me out of this funk. Seriously, it's been a rough couple of days. I've been totally outnumbered by my two little devils angels as of late. And they don't fight fair. Nope, these wee ones fight dirty. They fight with crocodile tears, trembling lips, outstretched arms, shrieks that would curl your hair, and endless whining. Did I mention the whining? I did? Well, it bears repeating.

Yesterday, when I was at the end of my rope, ready to give up and have the sob-fest I so rightly deserved, my babies provided me with this moment of pure joy:

Can you see how much they love each other? I can. It makes my heart go pitty-pat.

My new sewing blog!

I actually created my sewing blog a week or two ago, but finally had some time to write a post this morning! Check it out here!

A week of milestones...

My little girl finished her first week of preschool. Dropping her off that first day was absolute chaos, and I'm embarassed to admit that I cried the whole drive home. I will clarify, however, that said crying was partly due to the fact that, because of a little boy's desperate attempt to escape the classroom, I was only able to say a weak "goodbye" to the back of Lila's head before she was wisked inside and the door was promply shut in my face. The second day of school went without a hitch. And I was even able to give her a kiss goodbye before she headed off to grow grow that big 'ol brain of hers. But you really want to see pictures, right? Behold...

I did her hair in some twists. So easy, but looks so lovely, especially with pink ballies!

One of my most favorite dresses that I've made for Lila. I was thrilled that the day was warm enough for her to go sleeveless and wear this dress.

Seriously, she was beyond excited.

Kevin picked her up and took a photo as she ran out of the classroom to greet him.

Obligatory photo outside the school. Why she is doing the Captain Morgan Rum pose is beyond me. When we saw the picture both Kevin and I blurted, "Got a little Captain in you?"

Other news? Elijah turned 1!!! He decided to commemorate his first year on earth by crawling and pulling up for the first time all in one day. We had a wonderful family-only party...pizza, cupcakes, and lots of cousins made for an amazing day. Some highlights:

His #1 t-shirt made by yours truly. For a last-minute project, I was pretty happy with the end result...UNTIL I noticed a hole in the back of the shirt. So I added a wee something to the back to cover it up:

I know I'm biased, but aren't my kids beautiful??

One of the few moments Elijah has actually had on his new ride-along. Lila has decided she's a much better fit.

I made Magnolia cupcakes. I think he approved.

Clearly being cute & adored is exhausting.

The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round...

Ok, so Lila won't technically be taking the bus, but my little girl is starting preschool next week. It's surreal in so many ways. First, I simply am having a hard time seeing Lila as the little girl she so clearly has become. No more baby fat, no more diapers, no more comforting her during night feedings, no more carting her around on my hip. Oddly enough, it all hit home when I went to get her new shoes. She had gone up from a size 8 to a size 9. The visual difference in the shoe floored me. Add to that she now gets to choose from an entirely different wall of shoes...I was a mess. And I felt a little silly for spending 20 minutes purusing the shoes on the baby/toddler wall. Can we say denial?

I realize I've been absolutely horrid at posting lately. My only free time to do much of anything is during the afternoon nap (going on as I type) and after the kids go to bed. How to use this precious time is not easy. Do I sew? Blog? Read a book? Watch TV? Take a shower? Eat? CLEAN??!! So, I'm working on balancing this all a bit better.

The summer has flown by about as quickly as this naptime. Elijah is growing and growing and growing. Seriously, he's HUGE. Definitely over 20 pounds, and my mother-in-law is betting on 25lbs. Yikes. No wonder it often feels as though my left bicep is just going to explode after a day of carrying him around. We're a bit concerned that he's not even crawling yet, but in every other way he's magnificent. Smiley, happy, great sense of humor, snuggly (my favorite), loves to clap and raise his arms up in the air to the question, "How big is Elijah?" He is a mama's boy through and through, which is just fine with me.

Pictures!

One of our last outings as a family of three...

Aren't those pictures lovely? Taken my my friend, Alta. She always manages to capture on film exactly how I feel about my babies.

Adventures in sewing

I've finally taken some pics of the dresses I've recently made for Lila. Alas, Lila is not the most cooperative of models. I managed only to capture her in one dress before I decided that what had started out as a lovely day was quickly deteriorating with each click of the camera.

I'm sorry, but isn't she just gorgeous?? And then she insisted on wearing the Indians cap...

Here is where things started going downhill. Can you tell?

                                               

Close-up of the Oliver & S dress. Love love love the fabric!

Notice the contrasting hem!

This was actually made a while ago, but is the same pattern as above. Who knew there was a oh-so-girlie safari print out there!

Adorable contrasting hem. I'm thinking I might have that on the outside next time.

This is the "All-Ages Classic Jumper" from the One Yard Wonders book. After a little online research, I was relieved to find out that I wasn't the only one completely baffled by the directions for the back of the dress. After a ridiculous amount of mistakes (thankfully, my cheapness meant I subbornly kept at it as I had no intention of wasting this adorable fabric from Sew to Speak) it all finally came together. I definitely want to make this in some fall/winter fabrics (corduroy, for sure), but need to think on how to figure out the back & straps part of the pattern.

I was going to post some more pictures and talk about our week, but I've literally been working on thist post on-and-off for about 5 hours now. I'm going to celebrate the fact that I actually finished a post (with pictures!) and stop while I'm ahead. Hmmm, I just noticed that Lila is watching TV in a tank top and nothing else. Probably should get on that...