Little Smartie Pants

So along with being utterly adorable, my daughter is also getting smart.  She is starting to understand language! She waves goodbye when I tell her too..mostly and does the sign for eat at mealtimes.  She will also repeat sounds back to me such as dog, duck, ball, bear, and mama.
And in case that wasn't enough, she has also learned how to read.  Here is the proof:

Pillows, Smillows

Today, I made pillowcases.  Two to be exact.  The first was a Christmas pillowcase.

As you can see, there are actually two Christmas pillowcases.  I made one over a month ago and finally got around to completing the second today.  I also have a third but it is no where near being done.  I saw this great tutorial online for pillowcases and got inspired. While the lady claims that it only takes 15 minutes to make, it took me closer to 30 if I include the time spent cutting and looking at the directions.  Super quick and super easy!  These are to go in our future advent calendar.  I feel on top of things especially considering the fact that Kira won't even use a pillow for over a year.   

*I followed the exact dimensions for the first pillowcase I thought it turned out too long.  The second one I shortened by about an inch or so and it looks great!

The other pillowcase I made was from an old shirt.  I had an old beat up dress shirt and I had a falling apart pillow.  When I saw this tutorial, an explosion of creativity went off in my mind.  Wow. Can you tell it is getting late at night? 

I wish I had used a darker colored shirt but I didn't think Aaron would appreciate me cutting up his nice work dress shirts.  

Finally, here is a freebie. I made both of these bedraggled looking pillowcases a long time ago.  I originally got all three of these pillows on super clearance for around $2-3 a piece.  I see more pillowcases in my near future.  

Life Update

Kira is having her first ever sick day.  She is running her first ever fever though it seems stuck at 99.7 for which I am grateful.  She is just like her daddy and wants to spend her sick day hibernating in her bed.  She is playing with her toy and "talking" for the first time today right now as we speak.  You know your baby isn't feeling well when she almost falls asleep in your arms and cries in the bath.

It is ok to have bad hair when your sick

In other news, I made this amazing turkey chili with sweet potato shepherd's pie topper.   It was so good that I immediately started planning out the next time I could make it.  I did use half of the meat and more veggies.  It actually turned out to be an orange dinner.  I always accidentally make our dinner all one color.  For instance we've had the green dinner (broccoli with pesto panninis), the whitey-yellowy dinners (you know, chicken, potatoes, etc) and this was the orange dinner.  We had cantaloupe that needed to be used up and then the sweet potato topper, with the orangish colored chili beneath, in the chili I threw an orange bell pepper and some carrots and of course it was topped with delish cheddar cheese.

Finally, I tried to make Aaron some spicy mango fruit leather.  It turned out much more like spicy mango fruit brittle.  I guess I'll just have to try again.
That about sums up my life.

Oh, and this Friday is my last week of teaching!

Reduce and Re-use

Ok, so I was cleaning out our winter clothes and putting in our summer clothes...and today it is only in the 40's.  Oops.  But that is not the point of this post.  While I was going through our clothes, I found quite a few things to get rid of.  Yay for less clutter!  I don't know about you but most of the time when I designate something "to-be-gotten-rid-of" it somehow manages to sit around for months before I can decide what to do with it.  Do you just throw it in the garbage?  Do you bestow your once beautiful treasures on someone?  Do you give it Goodwill?  Do you keep it in case you can ever use it again?
I know that last one sounds silly.  After all, it is junk so why would you want to use again?  Well, I'm glad you asked cause that is the point of this post.
I like to re-use things as much as possible.  After all, a piece of artwork made out of free junk is...well, free! So here is my newest project:

In case you can't tell, it is a rug crocheted out of old shirts!  Obviously it needs some more shirts.  I have a few more to cut up and add to it.  If you have any that you want to donate, my rug would love you!  I'm looking for shirts made out knit materials.  I don't really care about the color as long as it isn't something crazy like hot pink or mustard yellow.  I'm also accepting used jeans donations as I someday hope to make a jean quilt like this one. 

Here is the accompanying tutorial. 

8 Months

My tiny little baby is 8 months old today!  Crazy! That is 2/3rds of a year.

She is so cute she can even make leg warmers look adorable. 

She loves to eat and she especially loves to feed herself.  The best part about sticky rice is that it is easy to pick up cause it sticks to your hand.  The worst part about sticky rice is that it sticks...to everything. 

She loves to play the piano.  She used to patiently sit on my lap while I practiced and then take a gentle turn when I finished a song.  Now she insists on playing violently the entire time I attempt to practice.  

Her talents include: 

• Clapping her hands
• Giving high-fives
• Fake laughing which she seems to believe is a form of communication
• Today she started to do the sign for "eat."  She can only do it about 1/2 but she's getting there!

She also shows no motivation to move at all.  She can sit up but if she falls over she doesn't even attempt to catch herself or right herself.  I think she may skip the whole crawling thing and go straight for the walking.  

My Workin' Man

There are a lot of things I love about my husband.  For starters, he thinks my blog is funny.  He is also super good at fixing things.  See here is proof:

He changed out the brake pads on my car free of charge.  If the women can't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.
He also works super hard.  On Monday, he went into work 2 hours early only to discover that all employees had to work a mandatory extra 2 hours at the end of the day.  And somehow, at the end of a 12 hour workday, he came home cheerful though very tired.
One of my favorite things about our relationship is our inability to order food.  You see, we have this problem.  The other day I went to have lunch with him and told him that we needed to find some ice cream since it officially had turned spring.  When we got there, we had a dilemma:  what to order?  We had decided to split some ice cream dessert but we have differing views on the best form of dessert.  I'm all about the chocolate and he is all about the fruit.   After pouring over the menu, I fought back the urge to order a chocolate sundae and instead was leaning towards the strawberry shake because I knew my husband would like it best.  I was still fighting this internal battle when it came time for us to order.  I just told my husband to choose.  What did he choose?  The chocolate sundae, of course.  Just for me.  I think he likes me.

He is Risen!

Over the past few weeks, Aaron and I have been thinking about Easter traditions for our family.  Here are a few things we decided:

1. Easter lasts for more than Easter Sunday.  In fact, Easter season is supposed to last for 40 days until Ascension.
2. We need Easter decorations.

3.  We decided to do an Easter tree.  All I did was go outside and cut some branches of a green bush, stick them in a fabric covered coffee can and then add some decorations.  This ear I did a couple of bird ornaments and a couple of giant marbles that I had glued to sticks.  Next year we intend to fill some numbered plastic Easter eggs with Bible passages so that we can use them to lead our family devotions.  Of course, all the passages will be related to Christ's death and resurrection.  As of right now, we're planning on putting it up about a week before Easter and then continuing in the devotions for several days after Sunday.  

4.  Aaron is insisting that we sing a lot of Easter hymns any chance we get.  

5.  We plan on continuing to look for worthwhile Easter traditions because it is such an important holiday for both us. 

Any suggestions other than the obvious Easter baskets and egg hunt?