She's one year older...

Well, this weekend I crossed bubble bath off the list. Of course, there will be no photos. So instead, you get a pick of me blowing out my birthday candles. That is right, I turned a year older last week. 37 years young. It is one of those odd ages like turning 20. You don't get to do anything, it isn't a milestone, it just sounds older. I don't feel older, so whatever 37...I think I am still 29 (sometimes 21 when I am feeling nostalgic).

One week of dresses...

Just as promised in the old list-a-roonie. Now to be fair, I pretty much wear dresses everyday now anyway (something that was not true when I wrote the list, but my behind has grown out of my pants). It was fun to chronicle. The pics my kids took gave them great joy. The ones my husband took involved confusion and eyeball rolling (but he has learned not to question my antics).

Good week to you!

More Progress...

New Curtains in the living room. They are made from a vintage tablecloth I got on Ebay and an old lace tablecloth I already had. And also, you are seeing my family room. So that is what it looks like (fresh after a cleaning- 5 minutes later and it was probably a very different space).




Much progress has been made on the old craft room. You can see the floor in there now.



And these, my friends, are delicious chocolate chip meringue cookies. I highly recommend. I have gained about 10 pounds over the last year and every bit of it in my butt and thighs. I don't think I'm fat or anything, but I literally cannot wear a single pair of pants that I could before. Even the big ones from post baby will only snap with a great deal of effort before and a great deal of discomfort after. So I have decided to be more aware of what I eat. My weakness is cookies and these are a great swap. They really taste like chocolate chip cookies and they are super easy to make. Get the recipe from Gina's Skinny Recipes.

This New Year has indeed been happy!

The aftermath...

Christmas was a time of illness in the world of me. It may have been the flu. It was definitely bronchitis. I was on my booty for a long time. Mostly I knew I had been puny when my hubby told me I looked really cute one day. When I said thanks, he told me it was the first time he had seen me out of pajamas in a long time. :)

So first of all, I knocked two things off the old list over the holiday:

tamales
ukulele

On New Year's Eve, our good friends came over and we made tamales. They were GOOD!!! Now I want to make some more and get really creative. I only got a few pics of Miss Z up to her elbows in the masa, but fun was had by all. It really takes a village to make tamales by the way.

Also, my fabulous hubby got me a ukulele for Christmas. Those 6 months of guitar lessons in college finally paid off because I am soaring along at playing. It is so fun that I can't even hardly stand it. The hubz said that this is the Christmas that will forever be remembered as the year he lost his wife to a ukulele.



And so there.

New Year's resolution is to exercise more. I really MUST.

Let's see how I do.

Happy New Year!!!

I know you won't believe this...

This is actually progress on organizing my craft room. Slowly but surely, I will be one of those people with one of "those" craft rooms that make crafters drool. At least that is what I want to be. I figure progress is progress (even if it is unrecognizable by the naked and untrained eye).

Also (insert gasp of excitement here) I am on Thrifty Threads again! This is really exciting for me because I very much admire Angela's blog. Stop over. Take a gander. Look at more than just my listing because she has some great things to say. I dare you to leave unmotivated.

I am crawling (with a chest cold that rivals Camille- old movie reference, forgive me if you don't get it) towards the weekend. Christmas cantata coming up at church and I am supposed to be a dignified Queen Elizabeth. That is very hard to do while you are hacking up a lung. Bah.

Merry Christmas if we don't meet again until after.

Felt is my medium

I love to work in felt. Somehow it is so satisfying. In particular, felt has nearly no match (in my humble opinion) when it comes to making Christmas stockings.

I have made all of the stockings for my family (somehow my dog ended up with the biggest one) except my own.

My stocking was made for me by a friend of my mom's when I was just a baby.

I just finished Miss Tiny's stocking...finally...I have had part of it done for over a year.

See our stockings hung by the foosball table with care (a tradition in the Tabanou home).

Miss Z and I also worked on our annual gingerbread house this weekend. I use a kit because it would make me want to die a lot to try to make the pieces myself. This year we used the Trader Joe's kit and it was really cute!

Miss Tiny helped us by eating cheese puffs (notice the telltale cheese dust on the shirt and the bit of cheese puff drool on her chin).

The results...

I will not let Christmas make me crazy (my new mantra)

There were never more devoted sisters...

This past weekend I had the supreme privilege of getting to visit my sister and her family. This was my first time to see my youngest nephew in person. IT WAS AWESOME! Here are just a few pics of the adventures we had during my trip (BTW- somehow I didn't get a picture alone with my oldest nephew or my brother in law but I am just stating right here that is not for a lack of love... gotta be fair and all).

My dad, Glen, sent deer meat home with sister at Thanksgiving so that I could eat my favorite chicken fried backstrap. I haven't chicken fried anything in a while, but you know, it is kind of like riding a bicycle.

MMMMMMMM...does not begin to cover it.

I also brought my niece a late birthday present. She loves fashion, crafting and recycling, so I thought we would make some recycled t-shirt necklaces (link to Threadbanger tutorial). This is such a fun craft and so fast and easy. It is very satisfying to walk away with a finished project in so little time. We ended up having so much fun that we pilfered shirts from my brother-in-law so we could make more stuff. We made a headband, scarf, two necklaces and a bracelet. Now I want some for me!

(does this dress make me look like Loretta Lynn?)

I love my sister to pieces. We always have so much fun together. At one point this weekend when we were Ebaying together on side-by-side laptops and giggling uncontrollably, my nephew peeked his head in and said, "You guys were meant to be sisters." I couldn't be more blessed.

horses...horses...horses...horses... (if you don't get this, see Sleepless in Seattle)