Mama's Christmas

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! I sure did! We had the best time with all of our friends and family this year.

I want to share my family's favorite gifts and moments during this week, and since I still can't get the kids to sit still long enough for pictures, I'm going to share mine first. I have been needing a good coat because we will be heading to the mountains soon for a little getaway (I am hoping to see snow!) and my mom must have read my mind because she got me this. But then I started noticing that everyone and their brother had this style coat.....So I gave mine a little personal touch by crocheting some flowers and adding a little wool felt and embroidery. Now that's more like it.

I even added a little flower to the back shoulder.

I also got some new shoes! I'm usually not much of a shoe person, but these needed me....and I needed them. I don't even have to tell you how much I love this cup. It holds coffee. and it is my favorite colors. We're talking love at first sight here. And just when we thought there were no more gifts to open we found these in our chicken pen. Christmas chicks! By last night all of the eggs had hatched and we now have 12 baby chicks to love and enjoy! What a sweet Christmas gift.

Here is mama hen taking care of her little flock. Yeah, about that outfit Madeline has on, that is her Christmas PJ's, a princess dress-up dress, her new apron, and some new rain boots. The kid's got style. What can I say? LOL!

My Christmas wish...

Is that all of you have the most wonderful holiday! And then I wish for a good snow this year! We have not had snow in over 10 years and then we got this one teaser last year, it didn't even cover the ground and it was really wet. It will be 70 degrees here on Christmas day. It doesn't have to be on Christmas, just before winter is over we want to see snow! PLEEEEEEZZZEE God..... Merry Christmas sweet friends! What is your Christmas wish?

A very productive Sunday afternoon.

Why didn't somebody tell me that Christmas is only like three days away? Shame on you! You should have reminded me! LOL! While I was sitting in church yesterday (after leading my little flock of Sunday schoolers into service- woo!) it hit me that I had a lot to make for Christmas, and THAT CHRISTMAS IS ONLY DAYS AWAY! I have no idea how it crept up on me this year, maybe I wasn't paying attention. I decided that instead of going to my mother-in-laws and overdosing on flavored coffee, like I do every Sunday, that I would come home sew. It really turned out to be a pretty productive day too! So here is the loot.

First up is an apron for my little Madeline. She has asked for a "pink kishen" (kitchen) for Christmas so she needed an apron and a few cloth napkins to go with it. I really like the way it turned out, even though I had no clear plans when I started cutting away at the last of my favorite three pigs fabric.

I plan to make Molly a half apron out of the same fabric for working in her kitchen AKA my kitchen! *insert evil laugh* "Molly, want to wash dishes? You can use your new apron!" Think it will work? Let's hope so.

I also had a baby gift to make so I ran to Target and picked up some basics for a baby layette. I got long sleeved Gerber onesies, little Carters pants, and a pretty knit blanket.

I bought this train a while back at a local sewing shop for 1$. It would be very easy to crochet this train, but for a dollar! it's not even worth trying! I appliqued the train on and then embroidered "train up a child" underneath. I was going for a child-like writing, I hope it comes across that way and not "wow she's really bad at writing". Then I crochet a very simple little lamb....

and then a simple toy sail boat.

I couldn't just be done with that, his head would be cold. So I whipped up this little newborn cap. Is there anything better than a little crochet cap? with a pom-pom on top? I love this cotton yarn so much too, it is so soft. I think if I ever have another baby I will have one of these caps for every day of the week! I was pleased with the layette when I was done even though I thought it may not turn out as good. I like that everything coordinates and they can all be used together, which does come in handy when leaving the house with a new spitting, pooping, baby. It's nice not to have to change ALL of their clothes because of a wet top or bottoms.

Last up is Olivia's (my 3 year old sister-in-law) Dorothy dress. I gave her the one I made for Molly when she was 2, but now she has grown out of it and has been very adamant that she have another...Soon. Every time I see her she asks "Samantha, did you bring my Dorothy dress?" So I'm thinking that she is going to be very pleased when I give her this and a Mae doll on Christmas Eve. Yeah, about that Mae doll, she is on today's list...along with two other Mae dolls for Lily and Iris, Molly's apron, more napkins and dish rags for Maddie's 'kishen', two little diaper bags for Molly and Maddie, PJ pants for Tim, a good picture of the kids in front of the tree, and a trip to the post office.

But first I'm going to sit in this little sunny spot here and drink my cup of coffee. I need it, after all that sewing I made it to bed around 3:30 this morning. Thank goodness I'm not really tired! I'm on a roll! Just you try and stop me! (as to that last part- I think I have watched way too many kid movies lately... it happens)

Just Another Day

Thank you all, once again, for pulling me through another sad day with your thoughts, prayers, and encouraging words. God is so good! Even when times are tough and it feels like everything is going wrong He always sends the sweetest moments to remind us of His presence!

We had a wonderful day here at home today! We didn't get much done, but we had fun. My sister called at 10am and woke me up, yes, I just said that, TEN AM! How did that happen? I never set an alarm to get up because somebody (most of the time Madeline) always wakes me up by 8-8:30, but nobody woke me up this morning! When she called we were all still sound asleep. It felt so good! Like I had beat the system or something! LOL! After I had been up a while I remembered that it had been a while since I had made a video of the kids. So I got the camera out and started with Maddie and by the time it was over I had some very funny footage of each of them. And there it was. Just another day with my crazy kids and these little moments when everything works out just perfect. That's when I realized.... it's going to be OK. I know I still have lots more bad days coming, that's just part of the process, but I will be OK. You can't stay sad with these crazy kids around! I sure am glad God has such a good sense of humor!

I hope you enjoy our little videos, southern accents and all!

I was going to tell you how I feel ....

but my heart won't stop aching long enough for me to put all of these sad/lonely/painful feelings into words.... Maybe it will come to me later. I have been trying to write for two hours and I don't think it's going to happen tonight. The simple version is this: I have been feeling like someone is stabbing me in the heart for the last two days. I miss my baby. I miss having a baby. And I wonder if I will feel this way for the rest of my life. I hate this. HATE it.

The view from my nest....

Remember this picture? I took it as soon as we finished the fireplace a few weeks back. Right after I took the picture I went to sit in that green chair (a very comfy nursing glider) but something was missing......I needed a table! So I started dragging one of my little Amish made end tables over to my spot. On my way over Ben asked "Whatcha doin babe?" to which I replied "I'm building my nest." So true. This has been Mama's nest since that day. I love it here. Today while I was sitting here with Ben home, a warm fire going, and a crochet hook and yarn in my lap I thought.....I love the view from my nest. I took a few pictures, got another cup of coffee, and settled in for the day. Perfect.

Is there anything sweeter that children crowded around daddy?Tell me about your nest. I would love to hear about where you relax, think, hold your children, read, work on your crochet/knitting/sewing projects. If you don't already have one I strongly recommend that you "build" one! I promise you will not regret it!

Free Crochet Applique Snowman Pattern!

This has been my little secret project for the last couple of days, a sweet little crochet snowman for you! I have just added this little guy to my free tutorials page. All you have to do is click the "Add To Cart" button and prompts will walk you through your free checkout, then the free pattern will be instantly sent to your inbox. This is a good beginner pattern too! I made this shirt for my Madeline and she loves it! It's just a cheap-o Walmart tee (under $5), but it looks so cute with good ole Frosty on it. I was thinking of making a few more of these for Christmas ornaments. Really all I would need to do different is add a little starch when I'm done. I think he would be sweet on a little Winter bag too!

I'm sure you all will have great ideas for how to use this little guy! Please share your ideas in the comments section, I would love to hear them! And remember any projects completed (or in progress) with patterns from The Handmade Dress can be shared in our flicker group. There are so many cute things over there, lots of good inspiration!

Thank you all for all of the well wishes this past week while we were sick! We are all feeling much better now and it seems that things are calming down a bit around here. We finally have a Christmas tree and the children are definitely in the Christmas spirit. So as Maddie would say "Merry Miss-mas"!

Family Concert

Oh friends! Would you believe that we are still sick?! Just when I thought it was over Molly got the sore throat and cough and slept all day on the couch, then Madeline started in with ANOTHER stomach bug. Two kinds of sick at one time? Is that even allowed? Because it seems like there should be some kind of natural law against that! LOL! By-the-way, it is FIVE in the morning. Oh yeah, you read it right FIVE. For those of you that know me, you know that my red head doesn't see 5am but few times a year- and most of those times are when I have stayed up until 5am. Mama don't do mornings. This morning I was up with my poor little Madeline at 4:30 because she was sick and then I couldn't get back to sleep. So what do non-morning people do when up at crack thirty in the stinkin morning? They blog about something fun (while wishing the children were not sick and they were snuggled in bed sleeping like a newborn babe).

This little scene you are about to watch played out a few weeks ago. We were having our annual "wood splitting party" where all of Ben's brothers come over and split wood to get us all stocked up for Winter. It's also a good chance for them to have some of those manly "who can do ___the best or the fastest" games that brothers NEED to play (even when they are grown and married). We have this little party every year and then we take them all to Red Lobster for all you can eat shrimp and hope they remember the food more than the sore arms the next year. Out of his eleven brothers and sisters most of them above the age of 10 play some musical instrument. - Suddenly this has started to sound like the opening for a country song, or an episode of Andy Griffith where the Darlins come to town! LOL! OK, movin on.... When they came in for a break Daniel and Caleb get this great idea to play a little jig on Molly's very out of tune piano and Tim's child sized drum set. I grabbed the camera the second I saw Caleb sit his big behind on that tiny stool! LOL! And Daniel, (who went to Hillsong music college in Australia) sitting on our make-shift piano bench! Goodness we have a lot of fun when we are all together! I hope you all enjoy the little concert as much as we did.

Christmas sale!

Sorry I have been out for a few days, I have had a nasty respiratory infection. I am feeling much better now and even though I am still pretty weak I am ready for something exciting! So today I will kick off my Christmas sale. 15% will automatically be deducted from every purchase in the shop from now until Christmas! I am ready for Christmas! I may even go burn a pretty smelling candle to drown out the smell of menthol cough drops! Have a nice day.