New...

My newest niece...so sweet...

Busy...

I haven't posted much lately (okay, nothing at all!) because I've been busy taking care of this new little guy and his big sister...

Isn't he sweet??

I do have some new posts in the works, so don't give up on me yet :)

A Couple of Photos

I swore to myself that I would stop neglecting my blog. That lasted all of two posts. {Sigh} I have lots that I want to post, but not a lot of time at the moment to devote to it. I recently spent about 4 days at my parents' house crafting with my mom and taking lots of photos. Most of the crafty stuff was Christmas gifts, so I'll have to wait to post those projects, but I have a few others to post in the next week or so. Here are a couple of my very favorite photos that I took while I was there (the second one is of my little sister):

Gotta love that bokeh!

Crocheted Capelet

I have been working on crafty projects non-stop for the last couple of weeks. I finished these at the beginning of that spurt. I saw the pattern for this cute little sweater and decided that even though I am not very good at following patterns, this one was simple enough that even I could do it. Sure enough, each of these took me about 3 hours to finish. My little girl picked out the blue and I also wanted to make a purple one to match some other things that she has. SO EASY!

And here it is on my little model, as she's dancing away

Blog Neglect...and a Cute Sewing Project

For a while I lost all will and desire to do anything even vaguely creative. All of my creative energy and time was being spent reading ridiculous amounts of history texts and writing long papers on those. Now that I am finally finished with school (until I decide I'm bored and go back) and have had a few months to catch up, I've been immersing myself in new projects. Hopefully this means that I will stop neglecting this little blog of mine.

Many of these are to get a jump on Christmas gifts, so I won't share them yet, but some are just for fun. A few weeks ago I saw the cutest dishtowels in the $1 bins at Target (well, the $2.50 bins) and decided that I ought to try to make a Halloween dress for my almost 3 year old little girl.

Pictures aren't great--

but I think it turned out kind of cute, especially because I spent a total of $2.50 on it. (I had the ribbon left over from a previous project, so no need to buy more!)

T.O.P. July Monthly Special--Fragmentary Portraiture

Yes, I waited til the last day of the month--but at least I'm still within it this time! Here is the link to the Take Out Photo July Monthly Special.

I know this picture focuses more on the candy, but I do love that she was holding onto it for dear life. She is such a candy fiend, but rarely has any at home. Have to love parades in July! I think she was afraid it was going to get taken away. I think it qualifies as "things directly attached."

I love the little dimple in her elbow...it's one of my favorite things.

Take Out Photo May Monthly Special

I'm a little slow--I've been meaning to post this for a while. I took these for the May Monthly Special at Take Out Photo. The assignment was "Color."

I know this isn't very colorful; I tried converting it to black and white, but it looked so much better with the little bit of color that it has.

Callie's Bridals

My beautiful sister-in-law Callie got married last weekend, so a few weeks ago I took some bridals of her. It was my first time doing bridals, but I think they turned out pretty good. These are just a few of my favorites, but I may have to post some more later. Thanks for letting me experiment with your pictures, Callie!

We were just about finished when it began to rain so Callie ran across the street and down the block and waited under here until we came to let her in her mom's building. My little girl loved that she got to hold a flower and hang out with Callie all day!

Little Fingers

Life's been a little crazy lately and I have lots of stuff to post, but very little time with which I can post, but here's a little photo that I like. It was taken while frosting Valentine's Day cookies (yes, I realize that was over a month ago) and although it's not the greatest picture, it does showcase one of my favorite things:

Proof that my 2 year old, the one who won't finger paint because she hates to get her hands dirty, really does, occasionally, feel that something is worth getting her cute little fingers dirty over.

Take Out Photo Monthly Special--#2

Take Out Photo January Monthly Special

I like this picture of my little brother and I especially like that his 

breath in the cold air is just faintly visible.

Kristin & Tyler

This little girl is the most photogenic baby ever! I took their family pictures last week. Her momma is my husband's cousin and is just as photogenic with a gorgeous smile. So not fair!

On this one I used the Vintage action from The Pioneer Woman. She has a couple of sets of free actions that are really fun, and some more practical ones but I had never used this one for anything. It never seemed quite right for anything else, but I kind of like it for this shot.

My new favorite...

Family Pictures

A couple of weeks ago we took some family pictures with my husband's dad & sisters. This is my favorite picture of my cute niece. She was so sad. I love the tear on her cheek.

By beautiful sisters-in-law

Cousins & Tutus

A couple of weeks ago my sister-in-law was in town with her two little girls. We don't get to see them very often so we decided to take some family pictures. We wanted to take a bunch of the girls together, and their Auntie Callie made some great tutus for all of them. So here are my favorite, even though it was very hard to narrow down. It's way easier to get good shots of a 7 month old than 2 rambunctious 2 year olds!

Sister-ly love...

My husband stuck a smartie in his niece's mouth for comic effect, but I don't think her momma was very happy with him!



The two older girls somehow conned grandpa into playing "Ring-around the Rosies" with them. I think that all three of them have him wrapped around their little fingers.