skippin' town!

tomorrow morning bright and early, penny and i, along with her gaga & pop pop, are hitting the road for busch gardens in williamsburg, va! we'll be meeting up with my brother, sister, friends, and quite a few of penny's cousins. good times are sure to follow!

sadly though evan isn't able to join us because his work just doesn't allow the time away right now. pictures like the one above from last weekend make me so sad that he's not going to be there with us. why can't we just win that dang lottery already so that we can concentrate on living life without that pesky thing called money that always gets in the way.

papa bear, we'll miss you more then you can know...

ps... you can follow along with our adventure on instagram is you so desire!

milestones and sleep

this is our past 24 hours...

i just wanted to share what we've been going through here for the past day now. first i'll explain that i've been having penny take her naps in her pack-n-play for the last few days, because we're going out of town this weekend and i want her to get used to sleeping in there now, so that when we're on vacation i don't have one freaked out little lady who can't sleep because she's in a new place. now with that run on sentence all squared away, i'll explain what's happened in the above photo.

two days ago penny learned to go from laying on her belly, to sitting up. woohoo, so very proud of our little baby. we clapped and cheered, and were so happy... then bedtime came. she just couldn't get enough of her new trick, and in her squirmy sleep state would suddenly find herself sitting up, with no clue how to lay back down and fall asleep. our baby who was sleeping though the night was now suddenly waking up every couple hours sitting up, and had no idea what to do about it. so we tried to teach her to lay back down and go to sleep. only, when we go in to lay her down, it completely wakes her up out of her sleepy state, and now we have a fully awake crying baby on our hands, who still doesn't know what to do when she sits up at night. no bueno!

so we had to do what no mama ever wants to do, and let her work it out on her own. knowing penny's personality, i know that she's a quick learner, and she'll get it if i just leave her to it. so after some crying (i'll admit, from both her and i) she fell asleep. but alas, she fell asleep in the least comfortable yoga position possible. once she's out, i just go in and ever so gently shift her to her side. i say gently meaning, holding my breath the entire time that she doesn't wake up, because if she does it's all over! hopefully she'll figure out soon how to just lay down, because nap time, which was a breeze, is now taking an extremely long time to achieve these days!

it's so true what they say, once you've got a little routine down pat, they go and switch the whole thing up on you. thanks for keeping me on my toes penn!

shop update

finally! i've been able to bust my buns and get some brand new stitched goodies up in the shop...

*tough love* 

*home is wherever i'm with you*

*a taste of home*

*custom bride & groom initials*

and here's a little something i'm really excited to be offering up these days. custom hand stitched table numbers for weddings, or any other special day really. these can be done in any color palette to match your occasion...

and here they are in action! photos from a wedding featured on Ruffled blog...

it really feels so good to be able to get those creative juices flowing again recently. since having penny it's been really tough to find time to feel inspired. ya know, sleep deprivation, dirty diapers, and a lack of regular showers tend to not make a gal feel her most artistic. but look at me, getting back in the swing of things. i didn't realize just how much i missed being productive until i actually was. i NEED to create things to really feel like myself, and being a fulfilled mama makes me a better mama! so these days i look forward to every single nap, when i can bust out some hoops, needle, and thread, and get on down to work! so sleep well little girl, and if all goes as planned, these shop updates will be a more regular occurrence!

recently... according to my iphone

days at home with this sweet girl just keep getting better and better. i'm one lucky mama for sure!

*currently penny is sitting on the floor next to me "watching" her very first disney movie. we opted for lady & the tramp to start her off. she's pretty into it!

6 months

a six month baby, yup we gots one!

these pictures were taken on penny's half birthday, and now, nearly 3 weeks later i'm finally getting around to posting them!

  this girl right here is growing in leaps and bounds lately. she's all over the place. not quite legit crawling, but definitely just a few short days away from it. she's more in army mode as of late. staying low, and dragging lower half wherever it needs to go. she's got the strength, the determination, and certainly the curiosity, yeah, she'll be full on crawling soon! she's eating lots of new foods, and so far we've yet to find something that she doesn't like. thank you little baby for making that easy on us! she's also got lots of new tricks, such as this little gem RIGHT HERE. her funny new faces and sounds just melt my insides every day. silly baby, yup, we got that too! 

  big news here though is that we now also have a through the night sleeper on our hands! i know these things change all the time, but for now, and for the past week and a half, our gal has been sleeping like a champ! i can not even tell you what a difference this is making in our days... or really, my day. up until now i had still been nursing her every 3 hours ALL. NIGHT. LONG! i was basically a zombie mama during the day, and i didn't even realize it until i got a full night sleep again. it's like the sun was shining brighter, the bird songs were sweeter, and i woke up missing my babe after not seeing her all night. to sum it up, it was glorious! and every morning she does it, it still is! 

so happy 6 months my sweet sweet lil' nugget. 7 months is just around the corner!