this one is for you, Mary

Here are the latest photos of Liahona with a bib that belonged to her Daddy a long long long time ago. I think she enjoyed the meal even more with this bib on!

I had to include this photo of the pink pants so you could tell she's a girl.

And apparently Leah wanted to show us what she's eating - literally.

who wants a camo baby sling?

I know you're amazed right now - amazed at the beauty and wonder that is this baby sling. Let me tell you how it came to be. It all started one innocent Saturday morning while I was sitting at a craft show, minding my own business while trying to sell some of my most treasured handmade crafts. This very nice gentleman approached the table and I proceeded to convince him that his daughter, a new mom could not live without one of the beautiful baby slings that I had lying across the table. He agreed with me, but then in trying to select a sling, he asked if I had any in camo. I told him I would be happy to custom make a sling for him, and the story goes on from there. A few interesting things I learned during this custom job:
1. there are many many different kinds of camo patterns out there. And I'm not just talking about the pink or blue camo. Who knew?

2. Those who love hunting love camo and anything made out of camo. It's a beautiful thing.

3. Our town has many very nice people that I am glad to become acquainted with, from customers at craft fairs, to other vendors, to salespeople at the fabric store.

The other side of this reversible sling. It's scary to say that at first, this nice man wanted two different kinds of camo for the two sides of the sling. He decided after thinking about it a couple of days that perhaps his daughter was not quite so enamored of camo as he is and that she might like something different. I got to choose this pink print myself and I loved it so much I made dresses for Leah, and her cousins Jordan and Emily (well, Emily's is almost done..).

dinner in 30 minutes or less...

So, we all know I'm not much of a cook, but here is a picture of dinner I made a few weeks ago with only 30 minutes of prep time. Mostly because Michael called and said he was coming home and he was hungry. So I kind of threw something together. Doesn't it look delicious (the white washed out things are slices of bread toast)? Unfortunately, it wasn't. Apparently the pork that you buy that costs 57 cents for 8 pounds (or almost that cheap anyway) doesn't taste very good. Even if you put curried mango grill sauce on it. Michael was a good sport and finished his. I did not...

Look at me - my name is Leah and I love big bows.

Or maybe my mom loves big bows. Just a few new pictures of Leah. The longer I live in Texas, the bigger the hairbows (or flowers) get for church. This one was taken Sunday morning, a few weeks back.

Show me your teeth!!

And see my latest tricks! Do you think it's time to baby-proof the house??

on my way to being a real pioneer

My very own Wondermill

So, in my quest to be a real pioneer, I recently purchased a wheat grinder. I also got many many buckets of wheat. Because that's what pioneers do. Anyway, I actually grinded (or do you say ground here? I think it's ground...) some wheat. It was amazing. And when I served whole wheat pancakes to the missionaries for dinner a couple of weeks ago, I think they were pretty impressed to hear it was freshly ground wheat.

I know Leah looks a bit like a demon here, but I wanted to demonstrate how excited she was that her mom was grinding wheat.

My beautiful bucket of wheat. I've got lots of these - stuffed in all the closets in my house. If that isn't pioneer-ish, I don't know what is!! I think my pioneer training is almost complete.

my latest scheme

A couple of pink polka dotted hairbows.

I often get these sometimes crazy ideas about what I should do in my spare time. They often involve lots of work and money to buy the necessary supplies. I don't know why I seem to be obsessed with doing something besides just being a mom. I just am. Anyway, Michael calls these ideas "schemes" because I usually grow out of the idea right after I've bought everything I need to do it. I try to tell him to be nice about it. I mean, it drives him crazy I know, but can you imagine being inside my head and having to deal with crazy ideas all the time? He usually is nice and allows me to do what I want and keeps the teasing to a minimum. So, my latest scheme is to sell my handmade creations (dresses, hairbows, baby slings, dresses, hooded towels etc etc) on etsy. I also decided to participate in a craft fair. Here are a few photos of some of my creations.

A hooded towel and matching washcloth. This one says "splish splash" on the hood.
A baby sling that I made for a friend's baby shower. I hope she likes it. I thought this fabric was pretty gender neutral, since she doesn't know what she's having yet.
Here is the whole gift I gave her. It included the baby sling and a matching bib and burp cloth. I must say I really loved this set. You know sometimes you love what you make and sometimes it falls short of your expectations. I hope my friend gets good use of this stuff.

dear blog

Hmm, well it's been over a month and I've got so much to blog about. So much, it's almost intimidating. I don't recommend spacing your blog posts out so much. But with me (and it's everything in my life, not just blogging), it's all or nothing. I'm going to try and get it all down. A trip to Honduras, a craft fair I participated in, and just plain old life with little Leah. She's working on getting a few more teeth in. When these ones are completely in, she'll have 8 teeth!

So, stay tuned in for some new posts in the next little while. We'll see if I can catch up! The picture above was taken in Honduras by Keyla, my sister-in-law. It doesn't have anything to do with what I'm typing, but who likes a blog post without pictures?? Nobody does, that's who.