Sewing and crafting

I made two of these adorable sets, can't wait to see them worn!  I used my Silhouette to cut out the big sis out of knit.  The baby bro is iron on vinyl, which I LOVE!

 I have been on a legging making kick.  It is SO easy that I will probably not buy any more, just make them!  This stripe knit I found at Hancock fabrics and I made my own pattern.  They fit perfectly!  Now I can't wait to make more!

Cute ruffle trim!

Auntie Shanna found some pink cowgirl boots for Tiana!  She has hardly taken them off since we got them... and they are a size too big still!!  I would say that she loves them!

I made another pair of shorties for Lil Miss.  She loves these shorts because they are so comfy!!  I am going to try to draft my own pattern for these too since the pattern I am not completely happy with the pattern I am using.

The first of many...

The kids had their first sleepover this week!!  Keaton went and stayed with Jace and Lily came to our house!  The kids had a blast... the parents were a little tired since they didn't sleep great.  However, for their first sleepover, it went VERY well!  We didn't have to make a middle of the night run to exchange kiddos so it was a success!!  Camden was feeling a bit left out so Daddy put together a little tent for him to sleep in!!  Of course then the girls wanted one too so we got out a pop-up house that was big enough for both of them!

What cute girls!

First day of Spring!

We have flowers blooming and snow on the ground!  Personally, I loved the snow today!  It was fun but I know that it will melt off so why not get out and enjoy it!  Tomorrow is supposed to be 66 degrees!!

 We went outside to enjoy probably our last snow of the winter!  The nice thing about a spring snow is that it is warm enough for the kids to stay outside for quite a while!   They played for an hour and a half.

Racing around and wrestling with Izzy!

Tiana making a snow angel... Izzy thought it was lots of fun to chase her feet!

Throwing a snowball at Mommy!

Giving Izzy lots of love and hugs!

Camden pushed this truck around forever making "brrm brrm" noises!

A nice thing about having a puppy is when this boy is wanting to have a snowball fight but his siblings are less than thrilled, a puppy thinks it is lots of fun!

When I grow up...

Tiana informed us that, when she grows up she wants to be a pony! What color... a sparkly blue one!  Camden told me today that "When I get big I be superman!!"

I am glad that my kids have set such high expectations for themselves!  The next 18 years will be very interesting!

15 Minute Dress

Fast and cheap!  I was in goodwill a while back to get something and had a buy 1 get 1 free coupon.  I found this floral Old Navy shirt so I got it for free!  My only cost in this was the navy blue wide elastic because the chambray I got from a good friend!  15 minutes later Tiana has a new dress for summer!  Now I have the bottom of the shirt that I cut off that some little girl will likely receive as a skirt!

Sewing for ME

So, nothing huge on this dress really.  I have had the black knit part for ages now but it was a 3/4 length sleeve dress that was short... I didn't wear it much since it didn't look good with boots.  This blogger at least a year ago posted about the same dress and how she just added length to it!  Since then I have had it stuck in my head and wanted to do it.  I actually found the colors I wanted and completed it!  I think she had her layers gathered but I wanted them to look like they had been there when I bought it!  I also added the purple sash... because why not!  I LOVE the way it turned out.  This dress will get LOTS of wear now!

 Now this.... this is what I am REALLY excited about!!!  I made the green cardigan! I went into Downeast Basics a couple weeks ago and saw this jacket:

I tried it on and LOVED it... until I looked at the price tag!!  $44 ON SALE!  So, as always I thought, "I can make that!".  I put it back and walked out... difference was, this time I was GOING to actually make it!  I got $9 worth of knit from JoAnns, made up my own pattern and it turned out just like I wanted it to!  In fact, I like it WAY better than the one at Downeast!  I made my sleeve have a little gather on top and I made the sleeves slimmer.

Baby Gifts

With two very close friends about to have a baby I got some baby gifts made.  I have all this yummy knit so I knew that I wanted to make some blankets, burp cloths and washrags.  Boring, yes, but it is always used!  For little Lincoln to be born in 2 weeks:

A fun stitched border.

 I had a swaddle blanket with Camden that I LOVED!  I got online to see if I could order one for each of them but not only could I not find anywhere in the U.S. that sold them.... they were $25 plus shipping from Australia!!  YIKES... they weren't THAT good! So of course the sewer in me thought, I will just make them.  This worked out great because there were a few small changes I wanted to make to it anyways.  I had wished it was a little bit bigger and the flap in the middle was different.  So, I made up a pattern.... they really are amazing... Camden (who was quite the wiry little critter) couldn't wiggle out!  The flap in the middle went over their feet then the shorter section wrapped and then that longer skinnier part wrapped them up tight!  I may start taking orders on these so let me know if you are interested.

We of course were missing a newborn to test it out on but Tiana's bear, Lulu was very cooperative!

 And for Kylee:

She got a "neutral" colored one since that is what her Mommy wanted!

Love these pink monkeys!  This one got a bias tape edge.

I can't wait to meet both of these little ones.... and take their newborn photos!! YAY!

Whale Video!

OK, there are two turtle clips and you can really hear the whales.  They are making different sounds in each video.  The second one it is more high pitched.  The last clip is of the whale breaching!

Maui

One of our business vendors has an Incentive rewards trip each year.  We had the privilege of going this year... WITHOUT kids!!  Airfare and hotel was paid for as well as most all of our food!  The kids went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for the weekend and then Auntie Kyla and Uncle Mark picked them up on Sunday and took them home for the week.  The kids did AMAZING which really made it easy to totally relax on our trip.  We had planned little gift bags for each evening that we were gone which the kids LOVED!  That and they were busy getting spoiled by Grandparents and a wonderful Auntie and Uncle!  We were totally pampered for the week and loved every minute!!

We made it to Maui on Saturday afternoon.  It was fun having someone standing there with our names and to get lei's!

A beautiful evening at Black Rock.  We were staying at the Sheraton Black Rock in Ka'anapali.

Heart shaped lei photo just for our little girl back home!

Mom and Dad on the beach in front of our Resort!

Not a bad view from our room!!

 Saturday we called to find out about Meeting and found out that it was Special Meeting the next day!!  Talk about a privilege, a Special Meeting WITHOUT kids!  On the way back from Meeting Sunday afternoon, we stopped at an overlook to see the whales.  They were everywhere but little did we know, we would see them MUCH better later!

 Sunday evening was an awards presentation and a luau, the only business obligation during the trip.  Well, besides when our rep took us out to eat one evening.  We walked down to the beach for a few minutes before dinner.

My cute hubby!

 We finished taking photos and turned around to see HUGE splashes!!!

The whale to the right just finished breaching and the whale on the left is in the air!  It was an AMAZING site!

Two big splashes.  They breached quite a few times in a row at the same time!

Both of them out of the water!

We saw all that from right here!!!!!!  From shore!!

 We found out later that this was a very active time for the Humpback Whales.  In March they start heading North.  When you saw them you usually saw a group of at least 3.  A mom, a baby, and an escort.  What we witnessed was two escorts competing!  What you can't see in photos was two baby whales off to the side doing the SAME thing!  They also were putting their tales in the air at the same time and waving them and doing barrel roles.  The whales were the most amazing part of our trip.  I have NEVER seen this many whales breaching out of the water!

The luau!

 So the show was good but the best part was at the very end.... they come out to the audience and choose people randomly to go on stage!  All of us had our heads down are were thinking DON'T pick me PLEASE don't pick ME!!!!  Well they picked Benji!!!  Hands down the funniest thing on the trip!  I have video but I guess I won't embarrass him too much!

Benji and the CEO of Chief who sponsored the trip!

 What made it even better is they thought he was the best and kept him up there after everyone else.  They made him do the hula all by himself surrounded by other ladies.  Needless to say, after this point everyone knew who we were!!

Still makes me laugh.  SO glad it was him and not me!!!!

Yummy breakfast!!  We had oatmeal with coconut, macadamia nuts and coconut syrup every morning.  Oh yeah and don't forget the fresh fruit!  YUM!

Love this!

Beautiful!  What was amazing but you can't really see in the photo very well, was the rainbow into the ocean.  You can see it faintly off to the left going into the ocean right off to the left of center.

 We took a drive to the best banana bread stand!

Beautiful!

 Hiking down to the blow hole.

To give you an idea of size... Mom and Dad are off to the left down closer to the blowhole!

Heart shaped hole in the rock!

Love the heart shaped glare below the hole!

 Papa and Daddy had to take some funny photos for the kids!

Pushing over the rock!

Rock climbing!

Papa to the rescue!

Goofy guys!

 On up the road was the most beautiful old church!

The front door!!

 We stopped and were going to hike down to the Olivine pools... we took one look at the waves and changed our mind!  It was so windy it felt like it would blow you over.  The pools are on the left hand side of the photo and were getting swamped by HUGE waves!

 Instead we hiked into a cove for some snorkeling!

The sign says: Warning Falling Coconuts!  Right where they are standing of course... reading the info signs!

This is a few of the snorkeling photos from our entire trip.  I will post a video soon though because while we were snorkeling we could hear the whales singing!

LOVE this photo with Dad in the background looking rather like the turtle!

Benji with a turtle.  Hard to see but it is in the bottom left of the photo.

Goofy hats!

 The next day we headed out towards Kihei to hit the beaches there.  We then came back and snorkeled around Black Rock.

Wednesday Morning we went whale watching!

We were in a small raft.  I was kicking myself for not bringing our Nikon!  Oh well, I got to really enjoy the show!  We were right by a Mommy, baby and Escort.

The baby doing a barrel role and investigating us.

The back of the baby.

And a tail!

We then got REALLY close to a teenage whale that was by itself and playing around.  We saw it rolling around, slapping its tail, and 4 or 5 breaches.  It was close to the boat!

 We got an amazing show!  SO glad we went.

Downtown Lahaina.

 We spent the rest of the day laying around the pool relaxing.  In the evening we went to Paia to the Paia Fish Market to eat!  YUM! We ended our evening at Meeting.

 Thursday was our last day.  Mom and Dad flew out in the morning and we didn't fly out until 10:30 at night!  We had all day to relax and enjoy the beach.  We ventured up in our hotel and got a few photos of the grounds.

Black Rock

We were sitting by the pool looking out at the ocean when we heard a HUGE splash!  This is a photo of our view... not zoomed it AT ALL!  See the whale breaching right there to the right of center!  It did this 3 or 4 times!  This is right off the tip off Black Rock.  All the people snorkeling got quite the view!

Not to bad of a place to eat lunch!

After lunch we went to one of our favorite beach from last time we were in Maui!

As you are laying on the beach at any given moment you could look out at the ocean and see a HUGE splash of whales breaching.  This splash was WAY out on the horizon but you could still see it.  Some were bigger than others and it made you wish you could really see the size of the whale that made that splash!

Diving in!  The way that this beach drops off you can easily dive in!

 We had an amazing trip and can't wait to take the kids back sometime when the whales are this active!  It was breathtaking!

As we were headed to the airport we got a call from the people that have Wednesday night meeting.  They had some flowers from Tiana!  We brought home a big bag of Plumaria that we got to make into a lei for her!  She was SO excited and took it to preschool!