Late Night Ramblings...

I've now received two of my three sets of stitch markers for this round of the exchange. I found a lovely set from Lia in the mailbox yesterday. Aren't they pretty?

I haven't been blogging much lately. I've been crafting like mad, working on some things for my secret pal's final package as well as sewing some clothes for myself. I'm getting fed up with not being able to find clothes that fit me right because of my baby belly that seems to want to stick around forever so I decided I would just have to make my own. I've done a lot of work cleaning and organizing my craft room and I now have a great place to work. I've done a lot of yarn dyeing and quite a bit of knitting lately. Also sewed myself a pair of shorts. Plan to sew myself a skirt tomorrow night after yoga. Here's some yarn I dyed for my secret pal. Her favorite color yarn is blue. This pictures makes the yarn look extremely bright for some reason. It's definitely a bright blue but it's not quite as neon-ish as this picture makes it look.

The boys are doing good. Houston is enjoying his swimming lessons and he's talking better every day. Brody is picking up baby signs amazingly fast. He now does milk, eat, change, swim and all done. He's still not walking though. He's been so close for so long but he just doesn't have the confidence yet. Oh well ... he'll do it when he's ready.

I had a really great weekend and this week is turning out to be pretty good as well. Saturday morning I got my haircut and then we took the boys to the pool. After that Brett kept the boys and I went to Gainesville to have my bridesmaid dress altered and to find silver shoes to go with it. It was so nice to go shopping without the kids. My trip to the mall was very successful. Got shoes I love in the first place I looked ... and they were on sale. Got good news about my dress alterations. I actually went back to Gainesville tonight and picked it up. They took it in a slight bit more than I would have liked but I can still zip it up. Might just have to step it up a notch and try to sweat off another pound between now and the wedding. Hmmm ... wonder how much I could lose if I really tried hard in the next eleven days. After the mall I stopped by Joann's and got lost in there for about two hours. Pretty much everything in the store was on sale and I got some great deals. Got some great fabric ($10/yd for $2/yd), a pasta machine ($30 for $9.99) to help with my polymer clay project, a pattern for my shorts and skirt, some cotton yarn (also on sale) for a dress i'm knitting for my cousin's baby and some more to make myself some face scrubby cloth things, a knitting magazine, and some soap making supplies. I could have stayed in there for another hour at least but the store was closing so I had to go. Then on Sunday I took the kids to my friend Joy's house for her daughter Layla's 3rd birthday party. I really enjoyed it. Joy made some amazing food, as usual for her and she gave me the most awesome early birthday present. (Dude ... I just realized as I typed that ... that i'm going to be 31 next week ... WHAT?) She gave me a stainless steel water bottle. I've had my eye on those and had planned to get one eventually. There are issues with plastic leaching into your water from plastic bottles. I've been meaning to blog about this topic .. maybe i'll remember to do that soon. So anyway ... I was super excited that she gave me this wonderfully thoughtful gift. It is awesome and i've been drinking a lot of water out of it already. It's amazing how much better water tastes when you drink it out of stainless steel instead of plastic.

WARNING: Cheesy self-portrait taken in the bathroom mirror posted below. I never take the time to straighten my hair but I love it this way. That's one of the reasons i'm growing it long again. The weight of my hair when it's long pulls the kinks out of it. Thought i'd take a picture to capture the moment of Celena with her hair actually done since I know you all see it so rarely.

Here's Houston swimming with his teacher Bridgette. She's been really great and has an amazing amount of patience to manage three two-year-olds in a pool at the same time. Brody loves to watch and keeps trying to crawl into the pool. It's a constant struggle to keep that boy from the edge of the pool while his brother swims. He crawls to the edge and turns around so he can back himself right into the pool. I doubt he would do it anymore if he found out what happens when mama actually lets him go over the edge. Hee hee ... but I wouldn't do that to my little munchkin.