WOW! Where Have I been????

I have been on "Maternity Leave"!!! While Bryanna is home on ML with the baby I guess I am too since I don't have Monkey everyday now. I am taking this time to get some projects done and be available to Bryanna and the girls. Since I last posted, lots of stuff has been going on around here - some good - some not so good. . .

Of course lots of GOOD with our newest addition to the family! She is one month old today and just so sweet. She is quite the little sleeper this one, seems everytime I am with her she's got those beautiful dark eyes closed! Us four girls went out all afternoon yesterday and She slept pretty much the whole time!

And of course there is lots of GOOD with my little Monkey - man is she CUTE!!! She is just getting so big and so smart. Everyday I am amazed by how her vocabulary is growing! Yesterday while we were out and about we had to go to Joann's so we could get her some wood to paint. I promised her and she did not let me forget!!! She loves those little cut-outs of wood. She paints them all up and we add magnets to the back for the fridge. Gotta start them out early crafting!!!


More GOOD for my Lizzy. She is loving her new job and her new classes. And her NEW HOME!!! Yeppers I said new home! My baby has left the nest. She has moved into the dorms and is loving it! I have mixed feelings - but mostly I am just so thrilled for her. But I do miss her and knowing that at some point during the day (or night) she would rush through the door with all of that energy! Her last night at home we had a going away dinner for her and everyone was here - we all had a good time with lots of laughs around the table.

I have had some GOOD times playing in my studio working on some ideas that have been rolling around in my head. Things like. . .

Measure of a Woman Shrine. . .

This will be a class in Oct, check the classes tab above for details.

Or the Alice in Halloween Shrine with it's tiny accordion book full of photos Lizzy took in her High School photography class.

So, like I said above my Lizzy moved out last week but before she did, we had LOTS of boxes to fill!

And LOTS of messes to clean up!!!! Lizzy did NOT inherit my "neat-freak gene" as you can tell by this photo of her toom. . .

Although it makes me a little sad to see my baby leaving, it did give us a solution to one little problem around here. We have been trying to figure out what to do about nap times once I have both granddaughters everyday. We all know that babies and 3 year olds do not take naps on the same schedule. And with no extra bedroom in the house I was struggling to figure out what to do. I also hated to take Monkey's crib that's in my room away from her to give to the baby. I just didn't want her to feel like she was having to give up her special stuff for her her sister.

Well, with Lizzy living at the dorm I had an extra room in my house. A perfect solution for the nap time dilemma!

Now to decide on the decor. . .

Easy - I have always wanted a Mary Engelbreit room - now I have one!!!!

More GOOD stuff!

So, I started buying fabrics. But it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Most of Mary's fabrics are out of print now. Thank God for ebay!

So last Friday night I started sewing and today I put the machine away - I am not completely done, but I needed to stop for a bit.
So here is the beginnings of my Mary room - I hope Monkey will like it as much as I do!

I made the patch work quilt out of pillow panels I bought online and other fabrics I bought locally. I used Lizzy's old comforter for the batting (saving my pennies) and lined it with black & white ginham. It is a button tied quilt and has big black buttons tied off with yellow threads. It is just so HAPPY looking!

I also reused Lizzy's dust ruffle (saving those pennies again)

I HATE making pillows and have never made a pillow sham that actually looks good on both the front and the back. But I managed to do it this time! I am just so proud of me!!! There are 7 pilllows on this bed - I figured at least one pair should just be in pillow cases for actual sleeping. So I made the very plain, but very sweet white ones with a Mary border and some lace. I even made a little candy roll pillow.

Monkey is not used to sleeping in a big girl bed so I put the bed against the wall, hopefully she wont fall out of bed too many times!

I kept the window treatments simple and out of reach! She has been known to pull curtains down before so I nice, simple valance was just the ticket in here.

I love the little dark haired cherry girls. And since they have dark hair they were perfect in my Monkey's room! So they are all over the curtains, on he quilt and even framed on the wall.

No Mary room would be complete without tea cups and sunflowers! Thank you Micheal's for having all of this on sale for 80% off this week!!! The little shelf was already in Lizzy's room, but I decided to give it a little lift with some black paint to make the stripes.

These are some of the toys I have made for Monkey in the past that have been scattered around the house. Now they can all be in one place.

I also made this banner a few weeks ago - just because. It says Life is a bowl of cherries. So it was only natural that it hang in here.

As a going away present FROM Liz TO me, she bought me a ME Nursery Rhyme book to read to Monkey. And I also put Monkey's ABC toy I made her in here.

This is a little antique highchair I refnished for my Monkey a year ar so ago. The baby is a Madame Alexander doll I got for her Mommy when she was just a little girl. Bryanna never played with her, but my Monkey likes her. I decided that after 23 years she deserved a new dress so I made one to match the room.

So, this is just some of the GOOD that has been going on in my life over the past couple of weeks. I feel very blessed - in fact so blessed I wont even share the few bad/not so good stuff that has been going on. I hope your life has been equally GOOD!

Now it's time to clean up around here so I will be ready for our new tradition of Sunday Brunch. The girls came up with this idea that we would all meet here on Sunday mornings for brunch together just so we all keep up with everything going on in each others lives each week. What great daughters I have to come up with this idea!

Did I mention being blessed?

Toodles