Family Pictures

Way back when Kayli took our family photos.  I thought I posted a few on here.  But I couldn't find them.  Then, our computer spent all summer on the blitz and I thought I had lost them.  Luckily, Kayli still had them on her camera and through the magic of Dropbox, I know have them.  The excitement of which led me to stay up all hours of the night playing around with "actions" on photoshop.  I never knew those existed before last month.  I really need to take a class on photoshop.  Anyway, I did NOT do what I was supposed to, which was choose and edit a family photo for our Christmas card.  Because , of course, messing with stuff for fun is much less stressful than actually making a choice on something relatively important (to me anyway.)  So enjoy and tell me what you think....is the editing too much?  I mean it's not like these are going up in my house, but the one that does, I was thinking of trying to make a bit vintagey.  I'm not sure.  So please, leave an opinion.  

Elena's Cowboy B-D

We celebrated Elena's birthday a little early and had her birthday dinner on Friday.  She wanted spaghetti and meatballs, green beans, and garlic bread.  Yum.  

And she was very excited, can't you tell?

She wanted a cowboy birthday, and all she wanted was horse things and cowgirl stuff.  Hence the cowboy boot cake. 

Her abuelitos gave her a Breyer horse and Schleich cart and horse, which she loved, and a sticker book of horses.  Oh, and a puzzle.  

Leo and I bought her cowgirl gear--the boots, hat, and 3 western shirts (the shirts were an AWESOME find at Once Upon a Child--sometimes Texas is cool for things like that.)

Then on Saturday we had her birthday party.  I'm following my sister's plan of only having b-day parties when they turn 7 and 11.  It's just too much otherwise.  We took "wanted" pictures, that I plan on mailing a copy of them to the kids in their thank-you notes.  

 I love Sebastian's!

 Then we played pin the tail on the pony.

 Then we went outside (the whole party was supposed to be outside but it rained all night, so it was too muddy) and had barrel relay races around 5 gallon pails with a few stick horses I made.

 Seven year olds are the perfect age for a party--they love everything you do and are easily entertained! They all loved it.

 Then we practiced our lassoing skills.  I was going to make a paper maché bull's head to lasso, but unfortunately paper maché takes 8 million years to dry here in Houston so that went out the window.  Luckily, we had Bull's Eye to stand in.

Then they practiced their quick draws against some ornery cacti.  That was definitely a hit!  Hee. Hee. 

Then we had some snacks--Lil Smokies wrapped in crescent rolls, licorice, pretzels, and juice.  I was going to put cute tags on them, like "rope" and "cactus juice" but frankly, I got lazy and said who cares?  Not me, and not Elena for that matter.  

Elena's second birthday cake.  

 

Then we opened presents, which Elena loved, and parents came and picked up their kids, and Leo and I laid on the floor for the next hour trying to recuperate.  Wow.  It was mayhem.  But Elena loved it!  She was so happy.  :)  Two of my friends at church both said their boys loved it too.  So that's good.  One little boy didn't want to take his mustache off, and now he wants to be a cowboy for Halloween.  

 So each kid got a bandana, and a hat, and when they left, a little galvanized bucket with some candy, horse stickers and a sheriff's badge.  

The end.

Sewing from a while ago

 This past August, I decided to make my sister's girls Scottish outfits.  That ballooned into making shirts, shifts, kilts, hats, and the dresses, (apparently a dog's costume too.)

 How do I do these things to myself?  I actually was really disappointed about them because I was going use this adorable pattern that I had to make the dresses--

The one with the apron above.  And it totally stunk because I don't read patterns and think through things first.  Hence it is all the pattern's fault.  Sigh.  The dress is all together in one with the vest overtop.  Since I wanted a plaid skirt and plain top, that obviously wouldn't work at all.  Ruff.  Then I had issues lenthening it.  My issues, again--once I thought through it, I was banging my head going why didn't I realize that glaringly obvious mistake I made!!!  Anyway, long story short, well not so short, I went back to my trusty Burda 9509 pattern and just made them with that.  Her kids love them though, so it's okay.  And I did make cute hats.  

 I mean seriously, those curls look perfectly adorable with that hat.  They'd look adorable without it too, but that's beside the point.

 I even convinced my sister to go to a Renaissance Faire with them at Thanksgiving Point.  Only they got rained/snowed out.  Sad.

 The failed vest on their dog, Patsy.  I think the goatee really sets off the whole outfit.  You can see the rest of her pictures here.

 Long before that, I made "Heidi" dresses for my sister Kayli's girls last November.  She took for...ev...errrrr to take pictures.  But they are really cute and there is even a goat, so it's okay.  Kayli said she wanted them kind of Sound-of-Music-curtainish so that was why I chose the fabric I did.  I used, you guessed it, Burda 9509 for these dresses too.

 Who would guess that a dirndl pattern would be my most used pattern to date?!?!?  Not I. That's for sure.  I used it to make the gnome costumes too. Gnomes--I love those costumes.

See!!  A goat!!!   To see even cuter photos of Talmage in lederhosen see my sister's blog here.

In other news, never, ever volunteer to teach an emergency preparedness class.  Guess who just got a new calling?