Beach Vacation

So much fun in the sun. 

Now we are home and work must be done.

I have more to share.

You'll wish you were there.

But for now please enjoy,

 the photo of my boys.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope that your Valentine's Day was as sweet as mine!

I Love Making Crocheted Baby Hats!

I have a new little hobby. 

Making baby hats.

Gotta love the crossed-eyed newborn look!

Before my youngest was born I crocheted a cute little newborn owl hat. It was so much fun. He didn't wear it a lot, but it was cute for some pictures. Of course after he was born I had my hands full, so I didn't make many new hats. But a few months later I started seeing different baby/kid hats online and was inspired.

This pumpkin hat is knitted.

I made more owl hats, a pumpkin hat for Halloween. Then it started. I would make owl hats now and then for friends who just had new babies too. It was a fun little gift I could easily make. Other people started asking about them, so I started making a few for friends and family. Then more people wanted them, so I made more hats.

   

At some point my cousin asked if I could come up with a minion hat. I was able to alter the pattern I have for the owl to create a cute minion hat. These were an even bigger hit. I was busy making them for many family and friends for many Christmas gifts and Halloween costumes.

 

Since the craze slowed a little bit I started doing some new patterns and making some new creations of my own. For Thanksgiving I crocheted Jonah a turkey hat and babylegs to match. For Christmas it was a gingerbread man and Rudolph. So cute!

       

My latest creations are a snowman (with top hat!), polar bear and fox hat. I just can't help myself. They are so cute on my little guy. We get stopped everywhere with compliments about these hats. It's a fun hobby for me. And it inspires me to make more. My little guy has quite the collection!

 

If you are interested in purchasing one, I'd be glad to talk to you. My prices are very reasonable and I can easily customize colors and size. Just comment here, email me, or connect on Facebook or Twitter.

*Quite a few patterns have come from Repeat Crafter Me. The rest are my own creations (some of which I remembered to write down).

New

Happy New Year, everyone! A new year means a fresh start. I see people around me already making their resolutions and trying to make themselves better.

I don't normally make resolutions. I find that for most people, they are just empty goals. Lofty dreams. It's just something that you do each year. Then when you look bad, you feel bad about the things that you didn't accomplish.

However, this year, I've decided to set some goals. Most of them are small and easily achievable. They are things that I've been talking about doing and haven't done. They are things that will better myself, my family and my home. They are things that even if I only do a few times, I will have accomplished something good.

One of those goals...blog! That's exactly what I typed down. Do I want to blog every day? No, not really. I know that's not feasible for me right now. But I want to make sure that I keep blogging. The last few years have been difficult for me to keep up with my writing and reviewing here. But I want to honor my commitments to companies who are sharing their great products with us.

I also want a place where I can share about things that are happening in my life. For the most part, I have kept that separate from this blog. That will change. Things have changed in my life. Having a new baby after 7 years has changed a lot of things for me and my family. So much about raising a baby has changed in 7 years. I am doing things differently in some ways this time. I would like to write about those things, so I can share with people who are like-minded or just interested in what I have to say.

For now I'm much better about sharing things on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook. So if you want to keep up with me, you can find me in those places. But I look forward to sharing and doing more here. I'd love to interact more with my readers too. I want to get to know you, so don't be afraid to leave a comment, tweet me, post on my Facebook wall.

And of course there will still be plenty of product reviews and giveaways to come!

Happy New Year!! I'm looking forward to what 2014 will bring.

Birthday & Comments Fixed

Me and my baby (just turned 3 months!)

Today is my birthday!

I don't usually do much to celebrate. But this year I wanted to do something fun at least. I decided to head out of town for part of the day to eat out (Chick-fil-A! My favorite!) and go shopping (Target! Another favorite!). On a whim I decided to see if my mom and sisters might be able to join me and the boys. They all work outside the home, so it's rare to get them all away on a work day. My mom is able to take the afternoon off, one of my sisters is on vacation this week with no plans, and my other sister should be able to finish work early and meet us for lunch too. I'm excited that we can all get together. It will be a fun little day away. Then I can come home at suppertime and still enjoy time with my husband.

Recently some of you have mentioned problems with commenting here on my blog. It made it difficult to enter giveaways. Those who asked, I said to skip the commenting and just claim that you did it for now. (I hope you still entered!)

I have fixed the problem. I couldn't figure it out before, but I finally took the time to get it worked out. You should be able to leave a comment like before now.

So in honor of my birthday (and the comments working again), it would be fun to see how many comments I can get for my birthday this year. Please leave a little note for me. And as a bonus it will count as an extra entry in the next giveaway you enter here. Have a great day!

Wordless Wednesday: Splash

I had fun with my new camera this week. My sister came over, and we took our boys to the little splash pad here in town. Zachariah and Easton had a blast, and I got some great photos!

Wordless Wednesday - Another Tooth Gone

I have had a crazy few weeks. I'm trying to keep up and catch up. But I couldn't help sharing this picture of my son. Zachariah lost his 2nd tooth today! He's thrilled. I just hope the tooth fairy remembers to "stop" tonight.

2nd tooth lost

Wordless Wednesday: Easter

I hope that you had a fantastic Easter with your family. Here are a few highlights from our mostly low-key day. I'll share about our Easter dinner (with recipes) another time.

Easter service at church

Up early and hasn't spotted the hidden Easter basket...do you see it?

Easter basket discovered

Easter egg hunt

Lots of eggs all for him (advantages of being an only child)

He was shoveling little chocolates in his mouth as soon as he opened eggs...until we caught onto him.

My pretty Easter nails

Why I've Been Quiet... My Son's Surgery

I want to apologize to you for not being a very good blogger lately. Life seems to have taken a turn for crazy these last few weeks. When I do have extra time, I'm just not in the mood to type out blog posts. So, thank you for bearing with me. I'm not sure what kind of time I'll have in the next week and on, but I'm thinking I will finally have a little more down time to return to regularly blogging.

Many of you know that my son, Zachariah, has had a bad year for illnesses. I wrote about it a few times. He just kept getting sick over and over again. It's been very discouraging. I feel bad for him, but fortunately he takes it all pretty well. Honestly, not much keeps him down and he's a cheerful child. One of my favorite things about him!

Poor Zachariah has had doctor appointments about once every 2-3 weeks since December. He has had strep throat or tonsillitis off and on since January. Every time he comes off an antibiotic, he gets sick again within 5 days. After 6 visits to the doctor with this happening, they referred us to an ENT expecting that they would recommend a tonsillectomy.

A little less than 2 weeks ago we went to see our ENT doctor. She was very nice, and discovered something else upon examining Zachariah. His ears are full of fluid, and he needs tubes. Poor guy. And with his large tonsils and history of illnesses this winter, she said removal of tonsils and adenoids were a must as well.

It all seemed to happen quickly from that. She prescribed a new antibiotic for him to start a week before the surgery, so he didn't have the chance to get sick again. And we were able to schedule the surgery only 2 weeks out.

So, tomorrow is the big day. We will have Zachariah to the surgery center at 7:00AM and his surgery is scheduled after that. it is an outpatient surgery, so he only has to stick around 2 hours after it then can come home to rest. And he will have to stay home for 10-14 days after surgery to avoid other germs, rest and recovery.

Please, pray for us tomorrow. Pray for my son as he is operated on. Pray for the surgeons that God will guide their hands and everything will go well. Pray for Matt and I that we will have peace and ability to take care of Zachariah as he recovers.

I am hoping and praying this is the end of the illnesses after this. It should fix most of the issues he's had. Then maybe he can finish this school year and not miss so many days being sick next year.

Good Thing He's Cute!

Easton with Great-Grandma Gloria

This is my nephew Easton. He is 20 months old. He is a ball of energy, unlike any kid I've seen his age. The exception might be my sister, his mother, when she was his age. I don't remember, but I've heard stories. And I remember how active and lively she was when she was a bit older.

Easton is also one of the smartest 20-month-olds I've seen. He has been talking for a while now. He started pretty young. His pronunciation is fantastic, and he's so curious to learn new words all the time. He's been putting together full sentences for a while now.

Easton is at the point where he knows everyone's names. He gets very excited when he sees us. You should see this little guy run after his only cousin..."Zacky!!!" he squeals when he sees my son. Every time. One of these days I need to get it on video. He little runs at him full force and squeezes him tight. It's so funny.

Now he's naming the rest of us too. Supposedly he has said "Sarah" or "Aunt Sarah" before, but I've not heard him say it. Once in the car on the way to my house, they told him they were coming here and he said "Yay! Aunt Sarah's!" with his fist raised in the air.

But he will say "Papa" for my dad, his grandpa. He calls my son "Zacky" like I mentioned. He'll point to my husband and say "Itsa Itsa Matt." That means: it's Matt or that's Matt. He says "itsa itsa..." about a lot of things. Too cute! But when we ask him who I am, he won't answer. I've never heard him say "Sarah".

We were at a funeral visitation this week where my whole family saw each other. Easton was running around and being nuts. Then I mentioned that he named everyone when we got there, but he wouldn't say my name. So we asked him. He pointed to his mom- "Mommy", grandpa- "Papa", Zachariah- "Zacky!", Matt- "Matt", grandma- "Gramma", then me. At first he doesn't say anything...

Then he says it. Easton points at me and says "Gramma." WHAT??!! We said no, this is Sarah. And we all tried convincing him to say Sarah. He wouldn't do it...wouldn't even try. Of course Matt found this hilarious (I did too a little) and kept asking him just to hear him say it. Apparently I'm now dubbed "Gramma" to my nephew. Ugh, I don't think I like this new development.

So I guess I won't take it personally and hope that someday SOON Easton figures out who I am! Have I mentioned that I love being an aunt? Love it!