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20130605_120426.jpg, a photo by weepereas on Flickr.

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Inspiration

Sometimes, when inspiration stikes it hits me hard. I pull out stack of fabrics, quickly jot down some notes and sew up a storm. This afternoon was no exception...

My mind is whirling with new ideas for mary janes, and I finalized the pattern for baby & girl sizes. I'm sure new styles will start to appear in the shop in just a few weeks!

Thankful

My God, how I have been blessed.
I woke up with my baby more than 4 times last night, who seems to think 5am is some sort of party hour.
My 3 year old enjoys to throw 'dying' fits where he throws himself to the floor anytime he is slightly upset, where he remains still as if a statue.
My oldest boy has the silliest behavior that trying to get him to listen calmly sometimes feels like I am speaking to a wall.
I am so lucky, so thankful for my 3 beautiful boys.
My little baby, who despite not sleeping all night loves to cuddles me, eats so easily and is an easy to please, happy baby. My 3 year old Big boy, is the softest, sweetest most sensitive little guy you can imagine. And my Kiki, who is so proud to be a big brother, is amazingly helpful and wants to be everyone's hero.
Yes, I am so blessed with three wonderful sons that God chose to have me be their Mom.
Chosen to be their Mom, to help them grow, to encourage their personalities and a strong attachment to one another.
I am so exhausted, so I-haven't-slept-more-than-4-hours tired, and feeling like I am failing when I stop to see how absolutely incredible they each are.
Big open mouth baby grins, belly laughs, and brotherly hugs that border on hurting each other.
I am so unbelievably blessed, so lucky to be needed as Mom.

*This post stems from feelings I have had all week from reading Diana's blog, and have reminded me to slow down and focus on all that I do have.

Pinned it. Made it.

If you are on Pinterest, you know there are Tons of super yummy recipes posted, with pics that make the dish look delicious and easy. Well, I've pinned lots of them with good intentions to try them (like many others, I believe) and have been sadly disappointed with the results. Insert big sad face.

So I have created a new board, {Pinned it. Made it} to save all those fabulous tutorials that are useful and easy to follow, and recipes that both look yummy and taste delicious. 

I made this one last week:

And it turned out simple amazing. Hubs even ate it, which is saying something. Becasue last time I baked chicken he said it tasted like a leathery shoe. Yeah.
The kiddos even gobbled it up, veggies and all! It was so nice to have a simple dish to pull out of the oven with everything ready for dinner!

The Whole Haul.

Oh yeah. I think I should start a fabric diet. Starting now for several months. My last of my fabric.com orders arrived today,

Heather Bailey Pop Garden on top, Dena Designs Taza in the middle, and Anna Moriah Horner on the bottom - love!! These are all yardage destined to be made into bags.
So here is the whole haul I got from using the coupon glitch:

All of these fabrics have intended projects, I just need the extra time at my machine to get sewing! And with crazy timing, an order I had placed 2 weeks prior to all this arrived today (finally!)

All of these prints are for custom orders for my shop - so now I can get working on these fun new items! A swap I did with Dorte came in the mail all the way from Denmark, I just love these squirrels!

Ok, Phew! So much fabric can be quite exhausting! I have more fabrics than I have space to store it all and am very tempted to just go buy more storage.. but I have lots of ideas and new fabrics to sew with now!

early morning.

Today started out so early this morning, it might as well have still been Sunday! Up at 5:30 to get Kiki ready for a trip to Children's hospital for a pediatric opthomologist appointment. At first quarter parent/teacher conferences Kiki's teacher had mentioned noticing his left eye wandering. She would notice his eye wandering out during carpet time, only to look back and find it had corrected itself - same thing would happen to me when I would watch his eye while doing projects or watching tv at home. At 2nd quarter conferences, Kiki's teacher had mentioned that she was still seeing it happening. So, I called to get an appointment  only to have 1 available in the next 4 month span!

(a bit blurry phone picture from in the office this morning)

Kiki did great at the appointment, and responded to everything the two doctor's asked him. He was brave (only cried a little bit) when he had to get the eye drops, but I had told him a lot of the things to expect at the appointment (Thanks Jenny!)

So it turns out, Kiki's vision is 20/20, only slightly near sighted, which is normal in younger children. In the rear of his eye, some of his skin folds are not fully developed which is why his eye will appear to be wandering at time - especially when standing to the side of him. What a day! All of this worrying and stressing over the 'what ifs' - but I would rather worry about the small things instead of ignoring them if it turns out it might have been something bigger!

A little fabric crazy...

If you do not follow along with me over on flickr, you have no idea what kind of madness I have been stirring up.
It started when I saw a post on a facebook group about this fabric.com coupon code and error when using it.

You can use the code 'PLTRY121' to receive $20 off your order of $75 or more. If you change the amount of fabric in your cart after you enter the code, you can bring the amount due to nothing and pay the $6.95 shipping, or bring your total down to $35, get free shipping and pay the amount you went over $20.
So, $20 worth of fabric = You pay the $6.95 shipping. $35 worth of fabric = You pay the $15 you went over. Pretty nice, considering we all love a good fabric deal!
I was quite excited when I came home today to find this pile:

I was all giddy over that tall box, wondering what was packaged like that? Turns out it was the faux leather I ordered (for baby shoes soles) and is rolled on a tube. Great, since that means no creases!
So here's the haul, so far*:

Some Caleb Gray organic robots, Laurie Wisburn modern whimsy dots, plenty of Lotta Jansdotter Echo, Michael Miller huevos, Kokka owls, Echino helicopters, and some pure organic solids.

I store all of my fabric in these milk crate type bins, and I had to reorganize so I could empty one out for all the new fabric coming.
Fabric.com is known for their irregular cuts, poorly folded fabric and shipping the wrong fabric. I am quite pleased that every piece in these packages was cut with extra length, and every order was correct.  If anyone is interested the code was still working earlier this afternoon!

*oh yeah, i still have a few orders on the way.