Before Anna was born, I started a couple sewing projects to keep me occupied while I waited. One of the projects was baby shoes. I got this little pink pair cut out, but didn’t sew them up until about a week ago. They’re really cute, but are almost too small already. I used the reversible shoe pattern from maked.ca.

Those were so fun that I decided I wanted to try another pattern. I found a tutorial for Mary Jane style shoes. I made a few changes though.

This pink shoe was an experiment. I sewed them by hand at my mother-in-law’s house last night, and it went together faster than I thought it would. I love it, but made a few mistakes. It’s way too big, the opening to turn it is on the outside, and the straps are too far forward on the shoe. They’ll still be useable, though. :O)

Then I figured I’d make a smaller pair. The fit is perfect. I made these on the machine, and the order I sewed them in made some of the seams really difficult. It was actually a LOT easier by hand. The ties here are almost too far back, but they’ll work. I plan on having Anna wear these to church in the morning.

Another thing I made today is a little pair of bloomers to go under Anna’s dresses. I would just put tights on her, but they don’t fit over her cloth diapers very well. Plus, bloomers just look cute.

They’re a basic pants pattern that I shortened a good bit. I put ruffles on some that I made earlier, but when I saw this eyelet ruffle at the store this week, I knew I wanted to try it instead.

Here’s a look at them with the dress for tomorrow.

This is definitely one of those days.

I finally heard from the company that I sent my broken USB drive to. They think they can fix it, but estimates start at $450. That’s a good bit more than I budgeted for. There was just enough tax-related information on there that I guess we’ll be saving up to have the drive repaired before we file our taxes for this year.

On the bright side, most of my older important information was stored on our external hard drive. All my music arrangements are safe. For that, I am IMMENSELY grateful. It was nice to see just how much was older than I thought and therefore not gone for good.

If you have anything important on your computer, getting Carbonite is a good investment. They back up the contents of your hard drive daily, so if anything happens, you can get the data back. We’ve talked about getting it for each of our computers, but just haven’t gotten around to doing it until now. Lesson learned.

And just for the record, the contents of the mug are actually herbal tea tonight instead of coffee. Imagine that.

And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.
Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath: their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord GOD.
Ezekiel 22:30-31

If the Lord were to search for someone to stand in the gap now, would I be counted worthy?

They dumped all the diapers out just so they could play with the basket. Who cares about clean laundry, the basket is more fun! Right?

Samuel was working on a worksheet with several pictures on it. He had to mark out the things that didn’t start with an N.

I asked him, “Does frog start with N?”

“No, they’re just funny. And they pee on your hand.”

I love homeschooling!

I need your opinions, please. I’m considering giving jewelry parties, but my biggest hangup is I’m not overly comfortable being in front of people. I’ve been to Tupperware and other parties like that, but never a jewelry party. Are they pretty similar?

I’m not sure I have the guts to do it, but it would be a great way to get my business name out there. The thought of making up a bunch of designs ahead of time sounds like FUN too – I usually make things as people order them instead of keeping a lot of things made up.

Does anyone have any suggestions, tips, advice, etc. for me?

One of my all-time favorite sweets besides chocolate is peanut butter fudge. I remember one year when my grandma tried to teach me to make it. Hers always turned out so well, and mine. . .not so much. We had to scrap that batch and make another.

Then a few years ago I found a recipe for peanut butter fudge that didn’t call for marshmallow fluff. That was great because we don’t typically keep the marshmallow stuff in the house. The fudge turned out ok, but the more I made it, the better I got at it.

Then with us trying to eat healthy and me trying to lose weight, I pretty much quit making it. That’s probably a good thing, as much as I like it!

Today I caved and made a batch. The flavor is good, but it’s so dry and crumbly. That’s a real disappointment! Does anybody know why it would have turned out that way? I think I remember reading somewhere one time that you can’t overbeat it at the end, but I don’t remember where that was or if that’s correct or not.

Now there’s a 9×13 pan of chunky-looking peanut butter fudge sitting in my kitchen. Once it’s completely cool, I’ll cut and freeze it.

Good thing it wasn’t intended as a gift, because it doesn’t look as pretty as I’d hoped. At least we all like how it tastes!

A friend from church bought us this blanket and gown for Anna. I love how she looks in this shade of pink!

My friend Niki asked how to make the headbands. Some of what I did was just playing around, but I did follow a couple tutorials for some of the bows and clips.

First, I bought the crochet headbands off ebay. I’m honestly not sure why they’re called crochet because they don’t seem to really be crocheted. They’re more of a woven, twisted ribbon band. You can find them all over the internet, but I used ebay because the prices were good and you can get cash back if you go through a site like ebates like I did.

The clips on the back of the flowers and bows were mostly alligator clips. I’ve made some fully lined clips and some that are only partially lined. If you’re going to use them with headbands, the partially lined clips work a bit better.

Hip Girl Boutique has a lot of great (free!) instructions for bows and other clip variations.

For the flower clips, I just used silk flowers that were already in the house. They were easy to pull apart, so I just used the silk petals for the clips. A couple of them I trimmed the flower centers to use, but some Etsy sellers I’ve seen use rhinestones or crystals in the centers instead. I might try some that way too, but I forgot I had any rhinestones until I typed that just now.

Have fun making hair things, and if you do, I’d love to see pictures. It’s always fun to get ideas for more!