Guadalupe River State Park

We started the weekend on Saturday morning with no real plans other than for B-man to work in the garage on some projects and for me to work on purging the house. But, as we were all sitting in the den, B-man said, "Hey, what do you think about going to Guadalupe River State Park today?" I was totally up for it. I thought Boo would have a great time! So, we packed up and waited for Lil Bit to wake up from her nap...yes, she chose Saturday morning to nap for over an hour! Figures! But, I'm NOT complaining! :) And then we set off in the Jeep. When we got there, it took us a little while to figure out exactly where we wanted to go (one of B-man's co-workers had been there recently and we were trying to find the location they played at while they were there). After unloading and reloading the car and stroller and car seat twice, and after Boo bit the dust and scraped us his knees one good time, we finally found it! And, let's just say...it was right where we were to begin with. ha! But, it was totally worth it. It was BEAUTIFUL!! The river ran right along the edge of the park and it was very shallow (with some deep spots) and Boo and B-man had a BLAST playing! Lil Bit and I really enjoyed it too. Here's our day in pics...

Ooh, the water was COLD!

Bit and I walked across the river to this outcropping of rocks and watched the boys play. I used the blanket to keep her out of the sun.
 

Boys exploring.Told you it was beautiful.
 

A nice father and son moment.
 

Boo's favorite thing was throwing rocks into the river. It was too funny. EVERY time he bent over to pick up rocks, he would stick his bottom way up in the air...

...and EVERY time he stood up from picking up said rocks, he pulled his trunks out of his well, you get the picture...

B-man and I got a good laugh out of it.

His tongue was out like this most of the day.
 

"This rock is HEAVY, Dad!"
 

"Awww!"
 

More rock throwing.
 

Bit enjoying some tummy time and looked super cute doing it.
 

:)
 

Bit got her feet wet, too.
 

She liked it!
 

A great addition to our playroom wall of photos.

It was a GREAT day!!

4 Months!

I seriously can NOT believe that Lil Bit is now 4 months old!! It's going by soooo fast!
She had her 4 month check up last week and weighs 16lbs 7 oz and is 25.5 inches long. She remains above the 97th percentile in all of her measurements. She's doing great...well except for when it comes to napping. Baby girl will only nap for 30 minutes and let's just say it's no longer working for her. Or me. She's doing really well in PT too. I think they're going to decrease her visits to once every other week. She's getting stronger and her range of motion is improving. Here are her pics.

I also took Boo for his three year check up and he weighs 36.5 lbs and is 39" tall. We're going to do one more u/s to check his kidneys and hopefully we'll be done with that! Okay, I need to rescue Bit from her crib...she ain't happy!

Good Times

We've been so busy lately...getting out of the house for something everyday. And although we haven't been home that much, our house is a disaster! How does that happen? B-Diddy D (I think I'm going to change B-man's blog name to that...that's what we say around the house a lot) has been working some LONG hours lately. They've been working on plans to bring home DOD dependents from Japan and have just been slammed at work. But, it's a good kind of slammed...where they're actually working on real world stuff, not just planning for 'what if' scenarios. Anywho, the children and I have been trying to stay busy and have been out and about a lot. Here are some pics from the last couple of weeks.

Lil Bit modeling the outfit that BeBe smocked for her.

We took a trip up to Austin to visit our friends from Arkansas. They were in TX for Spring Break and I was super excited to see them. Valerie and I were MOMS Club buddies in Fayetteville and relied on each other so much as new moms. Her Sweet Caroline and Boo were best buds too. She now has little Rocco and another little guy on the way. I miss them so much!

Usually, Boo playing with Play Doh is a disaster and leaves me frustrated to say the least. He wants to change colors every five seconds and he gets easily frustrated with the kneading of the doh. Well, I pulled it out again this week, and he did sooo much better this time. First, I took out the one tool that he always wants to play with, but can't quite manage. That way neither one of us would get mad about that toy. Then, I told him he had to play with one color until the timer on the oven went off (5 min) and then he could pick a new color to play with. Setting some ground rules really helped! He had a lot of fun, and I did too!

He wanted to make our family.
B-Diddy, Boo, Mama, and Bit


And then he made his buddy Michael and himself.
Michael is the taller one. :)

Yay! Smiles!

Bit might be 'New In Town', but it sure does look like she's in charge.

Thanks for the onesie, G&G!

LAUGHING VIDEOS!! LOVE THEM!

So, I started this post off by saying how much we've been out of the house, yet 90% of these pics and videos were taken at home. Ha!! Oh well! Have a great weekend.

The First Step...

Hi. My name is Carolina Girl and I have a problem.
I am addicted to http://www.zulily.com/

The first step is admitting there's a problem, right? :)

Bluebonnets

The Bluebonnets are blooming!
Long story short...we had two photo shoots. My friend Carrie asked if I would take pics of her babes this year and I wanted to practice first. One day it was really sunny and the sun was in their eyes, and the second day it was overcast, so what's a novice photographer to do? Keep trying, I guess.
Boo and Bit weren't the most cooperative subjects either, but I can mark it off the list! :)

This one cracks me up!

Boo looks like he's thinking, "Man, she's heavy."
"And Bit looks like she's filling her drawers...which she wasn't."

This is Boo's best friend, behind Daddy, of course.
EVERYTHING MD does, Boo does.

MD can't do anything without Boo doing the exact same thing.
It's kind of cute to watch.

OMG, look how much of a big boy he looks like in this one!!
Compare to his BB pics from last year.

You know how I am , so I'll probably be out there again, dragging the kids into the fields for some more pics! And if I know Carrie...she'll be with me! ;)

More on Play Mats

I found the fabric for the play mats at Joann's Fabric store. I found Lil Bit's fabric in the home decor section and it is a heavier fabric. The fabric for my friend's play mat came from the Juvenile Clothing section. This section has a lot of coordinating fabrics and is a little heavier than the typical calico prints. I bought 1 1/2 yards of each fabric and batting large enough to make the mats. I think I got batting big enough for a twin bed. I have a fair amount left over. The binding is double fold quilt binding. They have all kinds of colors and I found it by the thread.

First, I pinned all of the fabric together. I used my wooden yardstick to help make the circular pattern. I drilled a tiny hole in the yardstick at 21 inches and put a pin through it and the middle of the fabric into some cardboard that we had in the garage. I then took my pencil and held it at the end of the yardstick and spun the yardstick around the pin and drew a circle onto the fabric. I then cut all 4 pieces of fabric at the same time. I used the cut out fabric as a template to cut out the batting.

Next, I pinned the batting and one of the fabrics together (Bit's floral print and batting) and ironed them together. Oh yeah...I used fusible batting. Make sure to follow the directions on how to fuse batting and ONE fabric. Then, I tacked them together using design elements of the fabric. I tried to highlight them in the pics below.

Can you see the stitches running down the "vein" of the green leaf?
You might not be able to see the stitches, but you can tell it's tacked down.
I did that all over the fabric to keep the batting and fabric together.

Same thing here.
The stitches run along the left side of the yellow leaf.


Next, I ironed the other fabric (green zebra stripe) to the other side of the batting and then pinned it in place. I then followed these instructions on how to sew on the double fold quilt binding (I had to sew 2 packages of quilt binding together to fit around my circles). I have no idea if this is the correct way to sew on quilt binding, but it's what I did. :) Oh, in the tutorial, she doesn't pin the binding on, but I did.

I should have taken pictures of the steps along the way. I hope this makes sense!


Viola! You now have a super cute play mat.

Side note: It would be best if you could tack both fabrics to the batting. I also saw at Hancock fabrics where they had some reversible quilted fabric for sale. They had some really cool prints. All you would have to do is cut out the circles and put on the binding. It's already quilted!
But, I don't think you'd be able to embroider it, b/c it would show through to the other side.

If you have more questions, I'll be glad to answer them!
I'd love to be able to sell them one day. I need to practice a little more though.