Foiled Again!

My meager sewing cannot compete w/ the big-time smockers. Yet again, me and the Bean have been bested by a smocked outfit on the Smockingbird's contest. I guess it IS called the SMOCKINGbird for a reason! The girl who won is pretty cute though! And her dress is half smocked - good grief that must have taken forever! At the very least, this contest is a great place to get new ideas. Already there is a cute entry for October. Which outfit should I enter, the dress or the longall? The dress is pea green and brown toile and is reversible to brown and white gingham w/ her monogram in pea green. The longall is chocolate brown w/ pea green dots and has her monogram in pea green.

Halloween (or All Saints Day???) Fun

The Bean ready for the Fall Festival. I thought that they might give out candy, hence the bag. I was wrong. Darn for me, good for the Bean.

This is the Bean as a Bama Cheerleader for Halloween and our neighbor Harrison, who was born on the exact same day as the Bean! And his mom and I never met until after they were born! Harrison was a clown.

Roll Tide! We got this costume for FREE from my mom's sewing friend. She gave it to the Bean for her b'day.

The Bean and her good buddy, Ian. Ian is our neighbor also and his mom and I walk together all the time. Ian was a pumpkin.

Yes, the Bean has a dirty face. We were just finishing dinner (spaghetti) when Ian came by.

For Halloween, we went to the B'wood fall festival. There wasn't much the Bean could do, so we strolled around and people-watched w/ our friends Jessica and Annie. It was too cold to wear our costume to the fall festival, but we wore it Halloween night as we greeted trick-or-treaters. RR said that all the kids thought we were lame b/c we gave out Teddy Grahams. They'll probably skip our house next year!! (I would have! There was this one lady in our neighborhood growing up who always gave out popcorn balls or candied apples, and we never wanted to go there. Bring on the chocolate!) We had about 8 trick-or-treaters, which I thought was pretty good! The night ended w/ a bang, as our little cheerleader was running around the house like a banshee and fell on the coffee table and bloodied her lip. Ouch! But a minute or two later, she was up and running again, so none worse for the wear!

What will they think of next?

I'm sure all of you know about this, and I'm probably just way behind, but if you haven't heard about Google Reader, it's the coolest thing. You can "subscribe" to all your favorite blogs and only go to one site to see which ones have new posts! I subscribed to all my faves last night, and this morning I checked it and sure enough, two of them had new posts. The only downside is that I don't think you can comment on the posts from Google Reader. I think you have to go directly to the site. Although there may be a way that I haven't figured out yet. If you know how to do that, post a comment and lemme know! There are also other sites simliar to this, I just decided to go w/ Google.

Update on the Great Grocery Experiment

So, I'm sure you all have been dying to know how my grocery experiment is going along. To review, I have been shopping at Publix using coupons for the past few months, as well as buying certain items at Costco. I have also done Super Suppers twice now. I want to make sure I am being fair to Wal-mart, so I am giving it a try for another few months and using coupons and the comp ads. I am thinking that in the end, it will still be the best bet for the budget, but it sure is nice to have your groceries loaded into your cart and then taken out and loaded into your car at Publix. I also like the free cookie there too. :) I am also always on the search for good budget-friendly meals. If I find any new ones, I'll be sure to pass them along. That is definitely a key to keeping the grocery budget low.

Speaking of groceries, this pregnant lady is getting hungry. I think I'll go rustle up a snack. :)

Big Sister

This is me and my sister-in-law Marianna and their little boy Evan. You can't really see the Big Sister part of the Bean's shirt, but I had to do a light color b/c that's the only solid colored pair of pants she has!

The Bean is going to be a Big Sis! We are expecting baby #2, due on May 28th. That makes me 9 weeks along. The Bean and Peanut (what this baby shall henceforth be called on this blog until future notice) will be 21 months apart. I have been feeling great, and we are very excited! We told my family this weekend. We had planned on going up there anyway to watch the AL game on Saturday, but we also suggested that we all go out to dinner on Friday night. So we to a little Italian place (Hence the phrase "pesto cheese" in my pics...not the best choice of background, I guess...I'm sure all you photographers are ashamed!!) in my hometown. We thought a fun way to tell them the big news would be to let the Bean "tell" them, so we had a shirt monogrammed for her that said "Big Sister" on it. We put a bib on her so nobody could see the shirt when we first got there, then we unveiled it and told her to "tell" everyone what her shirt said. Of course, everyone was excited about the fun news!



For those of you who don't know, it took us 30 months (2 1/2 years) to get pregnant w/ the Bean, and only 2 months this time, so we praise God for this sweet blessing! We are so thankful!

Bathtime!

Are these bad pics to post??? I don't know, but they sure are cute! The Bean likes her bathtime, and I love her new hooded bunny towel/poncho that she got for her b'day!

Leonardo "The Bean" Davinci

In the Bean's Mothers Day Out program, they have a craft time and the Bean has produced some lovely art pieces for our refrigerator. I used to think people who had their kids artwork posted on their fridge were dorks, but now I'd knock somebody for a loop if they made fun of her masterpieces!! Of course, all she does is pat down the pieces, but doesn't she do an excellent job?? :)