Introducing ZoeyKate on Etsy

After two months of working on the perfect pattern, tracking down material and determining a great name I give you.... ZoeyKate on Etsy!!!!!

I will admit that I had been considering trying to duplicate one of Zoey's crinkle toys for quite a while, but it wasn't until I was perusing through Pinterest a while back when I came upon an Etsy pin of a homemade crinkle taggie owl toy. I will admit my first thought was "cute" but 2 seconds later it changed to "I can do better than that." I mean no offense to the person that worked so hard to create it but I felt It needed a little more life. So with a little help from the internet I set out to create a toy for Zoey before she woke up and this is what I came up with.

At first I was happy with it but then I decided if I wanted to sell it needed some work so I started altering my pattern. I completely forgot to take a picture of the next ones that I gave as gifts to a couple from church expecting twins but I kept working and eventually I came up with these.

I am very excited about these and I hope everyone else will be too. I have a few more colors on my site and have more fabrics to create with. I would like to expand into different shapes and animals so any ideas would be welcomed.

I am also selling items for women. Currently I have these upcycled jersey knit necklaces. They were another Pinterest idea.

Again any ideas for my accessories or other products are more than welcomed. I am working on perfecting my crocheting skills and plan to have a few items available soon.

I hope you will all check out my site, give feed back (because I am still learning the specifics of Etsy), and pick up some great gifts for you and your friends

In closing happy St Patty's day a little late

 

9 MONTHS!!! Already????

It's true our beautiful, amazing, little Zoey is 9 months old! As my mother in-law pointed out she is as old as she was in my belly. (Well I guess technically that's not correct but I will leave the math to the other mothers and pregnant women of the world.)

ANYWAY...... The last 9 months have been a whirl wind particularly the last few weeks. Zoey is still working on perfecting the crawling technique but is very efficient at getting from point A to point B in her own way.

She is also very determined to see what is on the coffee table, Roxy's chair and anything else she can pull up on. Wyatt is very proud of her pull up technique.

As previously mentioned she has found an interest in stairs and what awaits her atop them. Today she became interested in what Roxy found interesting at the bottom of them. Thankfully, I was ready for her leap of naive faith. Unfortunately she did not grasp the pending danger awaiting her on the other side of my hand and will ultimately try again. Hopefully in the kitchen with only 2 steps and carpet.

Before revisiting Athalia's for an early dinner with our neighbor Anne in celebration of Zoey's special we spent the afternoon outside. Funny enough I was about 9 months along [the 36 wk point not the 40.3 wks 9 months (yeah think about that)] when I last ate there.  Finally we rounded out the day with a bath without bubbles. She doesn't like them :-(  We have kept her in the "baby" tub because our stopper has been broken since we moved in plus it is a cast iron tub and cold. (oh and it takes less water this way).



Well I hope that these pictures have made you smile and I hope that you will sleep well and have a great day!

Lots of Love



What a week.

Last week was a week of new and old. With a few firsts for Zoey and a throw back to the olden days of church camp for Wyatt.
To begin Zoey has figured out to crawl up the two stairs from the dinning room to the kitchen but the two times she has done Wyatt and I were not watching and only discovered it by the noise she was making. See below...

Recently we have had amazing weather and took Roxy to the park with some friends. It was a lot of fun and Zoey had her first experience with a swing. It was so much fun! She laughed and smiled it was great. I wish we had a tree to hang one in the backyard. Until then...

 

She has also been working to pull herself up on everything but we will get to that in another post.
Wyatt did not leave us wanting for other entrainment. We decided this week to try making Afghani chicken and spinach it required a lot of onions, but they were bothering his eyes so what did he do?

Yes, he is chopping onions with a dish towel wrapped around his head. For those of you that worked in the kitchen with us at church camp you may recall this crazy scene. He is actually able to see by looking straight down below the towel but it is a great way to protect your eyes from those pesky fumes and get some strange but amusing looks. Of course this time I was the only was to see it so I figured I would share it with everyone else.

I know this is a bit short but I have plans for a longer post that will come hopefully tomorrow. For now good night and God Bless.

Zoey's First Snow

Just like Oklahoma the weathermen around here can be a little no, a lot wrong. We were suppose to have 4 inches and barely ended up with 1. Then sadly it wasn't the fluffy kind it was icy on top. Don't worry though we still took advantage of the temporary layer of cloud and let Zoey sit in it.
Unfortunately, my camera settings were not correct so the first pictures I took didn't turn out but I was able to get a few smile from her.

Roxy loved the snow of course and started running circles and coming very close to running me over. Sadly all of the snow and any water puddle to prove its short lived existence is now gone and we are looking at highs in the mid 60s this week. So crazy!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY everyone!
Today was full of card making and cookie baking for me and some good playing, almost stair climbing and true crawling for baby girl. I wasn't able to get a picture or video of her crawling because she managed to get to her toy before I could get the camera on. In any case here are the cookies I made for Wyatt and our neighbor Anne.

These fun treats were a Pioneer Woman recipe. I chose to cut them into hearts and cover them in candy melt and candies like Butterfinger, Reeses and M&Ms. You should try them!

Finally I will end with some pictures of Zoey for Valentine's day. Enjoy and God bless!

Warrior Day/Graduation

So while Warrior day and TBS graduation came and went two weeks ago I am still going to share the day with you.
To begin, Warrior Day is basically family day for TBS. It was a moment of unintellectual government decision making to allow untrained and somewhat supervised civilians a chance to climb in, out, over under, on rare occasion turn over the engine, and ride in the Marines multiple different vehicles then followed by a chance to fire live weapons at semi-unsuspecting tanks and zebra striped boards. In short it was fun and cold!

We began the day with a trip around the vehicles and watched as mom tried to recreate my uncle David's infamous Pepsi picture atop an armoured vehicle in Iraq. Hence the floating hand and silly smile.

Next we stood in line (missing the AAV rides) waiting for a bus that would take us to Range 3 to fire three different weapons. In short a riffle, machine gun, and grenade launcher. They were amazing! Yes Zoey went with us but Wyatt stood back in the trees away from the noise. We began with the M16 where we were suppose to only firing 12 rounds but mom was the lucky one and got a full mag!

Next we moved on to the M249 (machine gun) I did pretty well at this. I hit the target and got quite a reaction from the Marine helping us. First you see Randy, me, then my mom.

Finally, we went to the grenade launcher. This model is simply and attachment for the M16. In this case we were firing canisters that contained orange chalk that would burst open and show us where we hit. Unfortunately we were only allowed to fire one round.

After we were done with the range it was time to leave but Wyatt was recruited for clean up so Randy, mom and I headed to the Capital Ale House for lunch in Fredericksburg. (Very good)

The next big event of the day was graduation! This is what we had been waiting for for 9 months. The auditorium was packed so we stood in the back which worked out well because Wyatt had to walk right past us and knew where we were to find us after the ceremony. After saying goodbye to the friends we had made but are sure to see again we headed to the Globe and Laurel a historic and pretty good restaurant to celebrate. In all it was a long but great day.

Zoey's First Christmas!!!

Hello again!
It has been too long! In that time much has happened. Zoey is a whopping 7 months old and we have been in VA for almost a year! Amazing how the time flies. I will admit that most of the excitement in the last couple of months has been with Zoey. Wyatt and I are fairly boring at the moment but Zoey is ever growing and changing!

About two months ago she started getting on all fours and rocking but has yet to actually start really crawling or go from laying to sitting by herself. She is however moving forward a little bit at a time. The funny thing is that she would rather stand than sit if someone is there to hold her. I think this little girl will walk soon after crawling!

Her first long car ride went well. Of course she did get a little cranky but no more than expected after spending all day in the car. She also did very well on the drive back with mom. Sadly Zoey came down with a fever and lack of appetite on the 23rd but we took her to the urgent care and were told she only had a slightly red throat.

Christmas Eve was quite fun. We spent the evening with all kinds of family moving from house to house and finally ending at Mama Sue and Grandad's house. It was wonderful to see everyone and I am happy that Zoey was feeling better. While she was not super interested in actually opening the gifts she loved the paper, bows and everything her cousin Raegan brought her. That was fun to watch. Even though Zoey couldn't crawl and Raegan is not "walking" so to speak Rae wanted to make sure Zoey didn't miss out on all the fun stuff found on the floor. That did not always mean she was ready to share the "toys" or her Poppy.

Christmas morning was pretty great. Santa left her a blow up ducky, a set of teething keys and a new raddle! What more could a little girl ask for? After opening her gifts she played with what else.. the paper and bows! She did however get some great gifts though such as her new little piano, many books, and a new Brazilian boyfriend named Pedro. Yes she is racking up the list of boys wrapped around her little finger. As Holly Bergbower put it she has a man at every house rather than every port. But who could resist those big eyes and infectious smile?

That's what I thought you can't!

Zoey received two late Christmas presents... her two bottom front teeth! She decided to let Wyatt and I know they had come in at 5:00 AM! Of course after this her fever magically disappeared. She cut two more teeth while driving back but it wasn't nearly as dramatic. There is a possibility that she may cut two more teeth in the next week which would put her at a grand total of 6 in 1 month! She is getting so big!

Thankfully she has done well with all the traveling and adapted to being home very well. Now to adapt to Wyatt's new schedule after next week. More on that later....