Picture Day

Yesterday I took pictures of the girls and "baby" Kailyn. She is our friends' daughter and she is a doll. The girls all love her! Yesterday, Coco seemed to have the magic touch and could make her smile. I am not a professional, but I think we got some good shots.






A funny shot to wrap up the evening! :)

Drumroll please.........

There were 9 total comments. I used the random number picker outer and the winner is....

Comment number 5. Congratulations, Mindie! Email me and we will make arrangements for delivery.

Thanks to all who participated and remember to stop by and look for more giveaways this week. The fabric scraps are still up for grabs now.

Claire's Daisy Diva

Claire needed a new bike this spring. We passed her bike to Lilly and went on the hunt. We looked at the garage sales in our neighborhood, checked out Craigslist and searched several stores. She couldn't find anything that she liked as much as the Daisy Diva we found online. She struggled with the decision because she did not want to wait for delivery and wanted to just find one and take it home.
The website said to plan on a week for delivery. On Saturday, she decided that she would only be happy with the Daisy Diva. I was very happy with her decision. It has a big seat, upturned handlebars, and it looked like a good bike for her.It came much sooner than we anticipated and showed up on our front porch yesterday. That is fast service for $2.97 shipping! Jim spent several hours assembling it. He said it was quite a pain in the butt. The breaks are still a bit tight and he will adjust them tonight.
The major glitch for us came in the fact that Claire still uses training wheels. 20" bikes are not intended for use with training wheels. (I know what you are thinking...What the heck are you parents doing? Teach this kid to ride a bike! Let me assure you we are working on it. Claire is gaining confidence in other areas of life which I hope will spill out into these small daily battles)
Anyway, Jim is going to fabricate something at work today to rig the training wheels so that she can really ride the bike.
In the meantime, here she is modeling her new Daisy Diva!

Give away #2

As of now, there is not a whole lot of competition for the giveaway. Invite your friends! It is time to post about give away number 2.
You have no idea how many scraps are produced when making bags and other projects. I can't even think of throwing them away. They are just to pretty! Scraps are all different sizes.
Here is a pic of some of them. Designers include Amy Butler, Sandi Henderson, Heather Bailey, and many more.
I will make 3 bags of equal weight for prizes.
I'd like you to go to my website at www.handbagsbyjen.com and tell me what you like. Be sure to check out all of the areas.

Hermie is finally coming out to play

Remember when we got our crabs? Well, Claire's little guy has been very shy and stubborn. He just doesn't like to come out and visit.

Today he changed his mind. He spent a lot of time crawling around on the girls' hands. They were very excited. Me...not so much.

A Week Full of Giveaways!

I have decided to do some giveaways this week to see who is reading my blog.
Today I will be giving away a wool zipper pouch to one lucky reader.
I found inspiration (and a tutorial) for these beauties this week. My first attempt turned out pretty good, but I didn't have any beads or other fancy stuff on hand.
If you would like a chance to win this beauty, leave me a comment telling me your favorite part of spring.
I will use the random winner generator on Wednesday at noon. Good Luck!

Melvin found a new toy

Meet my good friend Rhee

Looking back, I can't believe that I haven't mentioned her before. Rhee and I are close. Although she doesn't know I exist. I read 3 of her blogs. That is right 3. She is a city girl who fell in love with a rancher. They have a bunch of kids, whom she home schools. She is currently on a book tour for her cookbook and she is a fantastic photographer. She is The Pioneer Woman.
This week I felt ambitious and decided to try one of the recipes on her cooking blog - Chicken with Mushrooms and Artichokes.

This is the picture from her blogFamily Fare had chicken legs on sale for 99 cents a pound. I picked up some, along with the other ingredients and headed home to start.
I learned a couple of things.
1. You really should measure when following a recipe.
2. Rhee really knows how to cook!
Here is how mine turned out
It was great! A little runny because I decided that I didn't need to measure the chicken stock or white wine and eyeballing would be fine, but good none the less.
The kids even ate it!
Claire was a little apprehensive about the artichokes, but she tried them and loved it!
I will definitely be trying more of her recipes.

Morning Checklist

I know we all experience it to some degree, but my kids have a terrible time getting going in the morning. Lilly loves to sleep. She will sleep until 10 every day if we let her. Claire has a mild sleep disorder and is tired each morning. She also has a very hard time staying on task. This morning we started using a checklist. Each girl has her own list on a clipboard and has to keep herself on task. Lilly's has pictures since she cannot read yet.This morning we were actually early to school. Why didn't I think of this earlier in the school year?

New bag. Blurry Picture.

Here is a blurry picture of my newest bag. I brought it and two others to our school auction. It sold for $275! Don't worry, I will not be charging that much.

I also completed bags for a wedding. Meet the Kinney bag.
This bag is pleated with a monogram band and has two interior pockets.

We have crabs!

No, not that kind. Hermit Crabs.
Welcome Hermie and Mr. Krabs to our family. Hermie is the larger of the two. He belongs to Claire. Lilly picked a baby. I am sure this is going to be fun. Especially once one of them gets pinched.

Spring Break 2010

We had a great time in Florida with my parents for Spring Break. The little girls and I went down and left Jim and Coco at home. I organized some of the 711 pictures we took into a quick little book to share with you here.
Enjoy!

Click here to view this photo book larger