Memorial Day

This day is dedicated to the men and women 

who died while serving in the 

United States Armed Forces.

Thank you for all that you have done 

for our country.

You will always be remembers.

Pungo Strawberry Festival

Every year we attend the Strawberry Festival in Pungo. We normally go on Sunday so we can hear Kimberly's friend, Kerri, sing but this year the girls had a birthday party to go to so we went on Saturday instead. We picked up Haylee on our way since Nicole didn't want to go. She was trying to finish up packing and cleaning for their Disney trip.

We wanted to get there early enough to watch the parade. We normally miss this as the parade is on Saturday and not Sunday.

After the parade the kids were ready to ride some rides.

Then we were ready to see some animals and ride the ponies. The 4H doesn't have as many animals as they use to. They had some baby ducks, chickens, cow, goats and a pony.

Now time for lunch. We were starving.

I'm not sure if we will be attending next year or not. It has gotten so expensive. With paying for parking, ride tickets, pony rides and food we easily spent $100 and we could have spent more but I ran out of cash. Jeff and I have decided that Busch Gardens would have been better. Yes, we still would have to pay for food but the parking and rides would have been free since we have a Pass Membership.

Homemade Cookbook

What do you do with all those Pinterest recipes that you printed out, tried and liked? You make your own cookbook. What else?

I bought a pretty notebook, a couple packs of tab dividers and sheet protectors from Wal-Mart.

I then pulled one of my cookbooks so I could figure out what I wanted for the tab dividers. Then I created those on the computer and printed them out.

Then I took all those printed out recipes, pages I ripped from magazines and newspapers and punched holes in them so I can put them in the notebook. I had several newspaper recipes that were too small to punch holes in them so I put them in the sheet protectors instead. I put the recipes in alphabetical order within each tab.

Now all those recipes from Pinterest, blogs, magazines and newspapers finally have a home.

End of School Year

It's hard to believe that the school year for Kylie, Haylee and Brayden is coming to a close.

Today was Haylee and Brayden's end of the year program and picnic. They sung some songs and Haylee performed in Dance Movers. Can't believe this is her last year in preschool and she is now officially a kindergartner.

Tonight was Kylie's program. It was called Bugz. The first grade classes sung some songs and did some skits. It was real cute.

 

I meant to record her part but dumb me hit the wrong button so it didn't record

Kylie's last day of school is June 13th when she will be officially a second grader.

Where did this school year go?

Happy 7th Birthday, Kylie!

It's hard to believe that seven years ago, 

we welcomed our first grandchild into the world. 

She has brought us so much joy and happiness.

Happy Birthday, Kylie Sarah!

We love you!

Happy 30th Birthday, Nicole!

 

On Nicole's birthday us girls went to Skinny Dip for some ice cream since the family celebration wasn't till the 18th. 

For the family celebration, Nicole finally decided on Red Lobster for lunch since her first pick wasn't opened for lunch on Sunday. Lunch was followed by presents and some yummy birthday cake from Cold Stone.

Happy Birthday to a Dear Daughter, 

With pride in all you've been 

and all you've become,

With love for the very special person 

you will always be.

Happy 30th Birthday, Nicole!

We love you!

Frozen Elsa Dress

Nicole, Dave and Haylee are going to Disney World at the end of the month and Nicole wanted to surprise Haylee with a Frozen Elsa dress. They are going to dinner with the princesses at Epcot and Nicole wanted Haylee to wear an Elsa dress. So after looking online and in the stores she couldn't find anything within her price range so she decided I could make one. What do I look like, a seamstress? Since the majority of the stores, including Disney, are sold out of items from the movie, what you can find on Amazon or eBay are very expensive.

So we made a trip to the fabric store and got the material, some ribbon and snowflake buttons. The store didn't have the snowflake material for the cape since it is out of season so we got something else. Of course, I don't have a pattern so I will be winging this as I go. What is it with Nicole and wanting me to make things for her without a pattern. She did find something on Pinterest that I will use as a guide.

For the top of the dress Nicole had bought some white shirts at the consignment shop; however, I didn't like them. I did like the sleeves on one of the tops. I wanted to use a leotard as it's tighter fitting than a top. What I did first was to take the sleeves off the leotard and take the sleeves off the top. Then I put the top sleeves on the leotard. The below shows one sleeve done, the other side still has the leotard sleeve on it.

The finished sleeves.

I had some brown paper leftover from Christmas so I decided to use that as a pattern. I had taken Haylee's measurements to figure out how wide to make it and the length.

But I ended up making a huge mistake. I made the pattern fine but dumb me folded the pattern in half so after I sewed the front and back together I realized it wasn't wide enough. Of course, I didn't have enough fabric to do a redo so I had to go back to the fabric store and get some more material. Luckily, I had taken pictures of the material that we picked at the store so I knew what I needed to get.

After I sewed on the leotard to the bottom of the dress.

After I sewed on the ribbon and the cape.

The back with the cape.

We decided that we wanted to sew the snowflakes around the neck line instead of on the ribbon since they blended in with the ribbon as they were both silver.

The completed dress, the front view.

The back view.

Parts of this dress was difficult to make and I'm not sure if I would ever do it again. The cape was the most difficult part as it wouldn't lay right and it was hard to sew. But it's done and I like how it turned out. I can't wait to see Haylee's reaction when she sees it for the first time at Disney World.

I hope you like the dress Princess Haylee, I mean Queen Elsa!

Happy Mother's Day!

Wishing my Mom, Kimberly, Nicole, Tammy,

Terrisa, Ashleigh, Clarice, Terri 

and all mothers a very Happy Mother's Day!

Love you, Mom!