Aprilness

Just some little snippets of April.

 Henry learned to CRAWL!!!!!  (beginning of April...maybe even April 1st).

 I made this cute outfit for our new niece, little Eliza Jane Rose.  She lives in Atlanta and we won't see her till June.  It's killing me!!

 Cannon & Thomas painting together.  Thomas was making a flower garden.  Cannon was painting rain falling down on his flowers.  :)

 Crazy hair day at his office + looking at blueprints for his new office = a strange, hard to take seriously combination.

 A fun day painting outside.

 Is there something on my face?  I feel like there's something on my face.  :)  Henry is a very messy eater!

 Hanging out with cousins at Dad's office. 

 Same day.  Lily and Libby were twinners!

 I made a double batch of our new favorite cookies. But I forgot to double the sugar.  Oops!  They were still super yummy, just not as sweet as one might expect.  A simple way to unintentionally stay on track with Weight Watchers.  haha!  Recipe HERE.
They're amazing, by the way.

Getting ready for our St. George trip.  I was picking out outfits for our family pictures.  They were bright and fun...but the pictures were kind of a bomb.  We'll reuse these for real pics later this spring!

I Get Obsessed. It's True.

Stanton and I both have a funny personality trait.  We get really obsessed with a particular hobby or activity for a period of time.  It's all we think about.  All we want to spend our time doing.

Right now, my obsession is sewing.  We recently cleaned out and organized our office/craft room.  I had had my half organized for making cards and paper crafting -- that stuff was all easily accessible.  Well, that obsession ended about 2 years ago!  I didn't enjoy coming in and doing other things in here because it was a pain to get all the sewing stuff out and put it away.  As I was cleaning out and de-junking I had one of those great epiphanies and didn't just declutter - I reorganized it so that my sewing stuff was the easily accessible stuff.  Whew!  What a difference that made!  In the two weeks since then, I think I've sewn something every single day.  It's such a great rewarding hobby.  I'm loving it.

I haven't taken pictures of every single thing, but here are a few!

 Valentine's Day outfits for Lily & Chloe (and several other simple skirts in different fabrics).

 Loving this patchwork heart applique!!!  Idea and directions HERE.  Cute matching headbands with several of the skirts.

 This refashion of an old t-shirt.  Definitely not my favorite project - I'm not thrilled with how it turned out...but I didn't have enough fabric to gather it as much as it needed to be gathered, so you do what you can, right?!  Cutest model!

 One of my favorite projects because I really just had to figure it out on my own.  I really exercised my brain on this one.  Love that!  Especially when it works out!

 The 'bapron' in a waterproof/absorbent PUL fabric.  And the cutest baby in the whole world.

Valentine's pennant banner.  Another "wing it" project.  I love when those work out!

 I was feeling pretty proud of myself over this one.  I finished a spool of thread!!!  My comment on Instagram was that this seems like the sewing equivalent of finishing a tube of chapstick.  It never happens!  (at least not to me)  It was a big accomplishment.  Ha!

This duffel bag is another project I'm pleased with.  It was a challenge and I actually had to use pi.  How crazy is that?!  I love that it's lined.  I love that the yellow zipper is from my Grandma Johnson's sewing stash that she gifted to me a few years ago.  I love that connection to her.  Those handles took longer than the rest of the project combined.  I wanted to curse a few times.  They turned out in the end, though.  Phew!  Chloe loved taking this to her gymnastics meet today.  :)

I've also sewn some envelope pillow covers (fun and simple!), key chains (not my favorite), blankets and pillow cases (these were at Christmas-time - not officially during this obsession), helped Chloe sew a cute heart shaped pillow that she designed, and helped Lily make matching skirts for her and her Journey Girl doll, a car seat blanket for Henry  (a la THIS tutorial), and an infinity scarf.  There have been a LOT of projects.  I find sewing to be really fulfilling.  I can see the end result and it lasts much longer than clean dishes or folded laundry.  I still get those done, but it's nice to have a hobby whose results last a bit longer!  Thanks to Pinterest, there will be a lot more to come. 

It's cute - the kids have loved seeing me do this, too.  Interesting - I would have thought that it would drive them nuts.  They like seeing me accomplish something, though.  I think the every day things that I do just to maintain status quo in our home are harder for them to see and measure - maybe that's why they've liked this so much.  Chloe told me the other day that I should open a store where I sold the things I made.  She promised that she'd watch the kids so I could do that.  What a cutie!  I promised her that I was really happy in my chosen profession of motherhood and that I'd keep enjoying this as a hobby.  :)  I appreciated her confidence in me, though!

All of this has been done on my 10 year old machine that is currently being held together with duct tape.  :)