Moving!!

Hey Blog,

I know I have totally rejected you but to top it all off....I've decided to move to another location. You can now find me here - http://mymamasaidsew.blogspot.com/

Come see me!!

I love Halloween

Dressing up has always been my thing. Ask anyone. I'm so good at costumes and can create a costume out of any household item. So of course my child is going to have a great costume for her first one. BUT due to one of my best friend's destination wedding Halloween weekend, I'm going to miss baby E's first Halloween!! She's staying with my mom so I've convinced mom to dress her up and take her trick or treating. I haven't quite gotten all of E's costume yet...but here are some pics of her trying on the best part...the hairy dress. HA! She's going to be Toto, mom's going to be Dorothy, Tweedy is the Tin man, my brother is the Scarecrow, Jayber is of course the Cowardly Lion and my dad is the Emerald City King or maybe the witch. HA! This idea stemmed from my mom's fierce desire since she was a child to be Dorothy. She loves that movie!





I knew I wanted to make E's costume...but didn't really want to find a pattern for a dog outfit. Instead, I used a simple A-line dress pattern. I think the hairy material is perfect and I laughed out loud when I found it at Hancocks. Any suggestions on how to do the ears? I'm not sure I can get a 9 month old to wear a headband. What if I knitted a brown hat and sewed the ears to it? Eureka!

Tweedy said she looked like a cavewoman. Once she gets the rest of her costume though: brown tights, brown shirt, ears and of course a painted nose...she'll look just like Toto! Pics of the finished product to come!

Our Porch Is Famous

I had to share this! We have a great screened-in porch on the back of our house that we spend a lot of time on watching football games, cooking out and just enjoying the Southern weather. A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine who works at Southern Living asked if they could come do a photo shoot using our porch as the background for one of their upcoming issues. We of course agreed and Tweedy and I spent a whole day getting ready. We cleaned, dusted, old englished the old church pew that's the focal point of the room and of course Tweedy put plants everywhere. The day finally came!! They got here with a moving crew and moved out every bit of our furniture. HA! Then they spent two days taking pictures and cooking tons of recipes all with these ingredients: corn, okra and tomatoes. (it comes out July 2010) Most of the shots are pretty tight on the food, but if you know what our porch looks like...you'd know it was shot on our porch....maybe. :)

I was just glad they let us have the leftovers!!

$2000 Parking Pass

I have a little brother who's a senior in college. He's always been a pretty bright and intelligent guy, studying all the time, getting his degree in civil engineering. So doing something like this is.....ugh, I don't know what it is. It's just plain dumb. So at this very very large university he attends, each year the students purchase parking passes to reserve their places while they're in class. Freshman of course have the worst spots but you get closer and closer to the buildings as you go up each year. Being a senior this year, he would have had prime parking. I mean right in the front, step out of your car and you're there. We called it "princess parking." I'm not sure what boys call it. Anyway...brother of mine forgot to order his $25 parking pass this year, and since the school is overcrowded, he couldn't get one once it was too late. He was told he'd have to park in the freshman lot about 3 miles from his classes. And he said...nope! "I think I'll go and buy a motorcycle off the internet and park right outside the building door." Ugh...I hate motorcycles and think they're so dangerous. But that's what he did and he's pretty pumped about it. It's a Harley...you can hear him coming from a mile away. He's the one in front, the one in the back is his best friend.

Yard Bandit

We have a new little friend in our backyard....Backstory - I've been noticing over the past couple of weeks that our little cat, Mia, has really been eating her food quickly! I'll fill her bowl at night and then the next morning it's gone! I also started noticing that she refuses to go into our screened in porch and backyard lately choosing to instead lounge around in our carport, by the back door or on our cars. Hmmmm this tipped me off b/c she loves the backyard. Second thing that tipped me off was when the cat food bag had been clawed to shreds and the bag emptied!! A dog, I thought?? Or a neighborhood cat maybe? No no no....a trip outside one day revealed a RACOON on our porch! Tweedy and I tried several different things to get rid of it:

1. Set up the baby video monitor outside in front of a bowl of catfood. After waiting and waiting we finally saw the little booger on the screen chowing down. So Tweedy grabs his pellet gun and sneaks out the front door to shoot him, but he ran away right as the door opened. Not gonna be that easy.

2. Called Animal Control. Where I was told that in order for them to come rid us of the racoon, they would put a trap in our yard for a week, come check it and take away the animal once they caught it. This would cost us $200. No thank you!

3. Bought my own *#&% racoon trap for $50. The first couple of nights it didn't work. One night something even ate all the food, took a poop in the trap and somehow escaped with the door down. But then...BINGO! We caught not one, but TWO stinkers! The original plan was for Tweedy to shoot them once we caught them, but since he was unable to do that, he decided to let them go on his way to work in the "woods," which since we live in the city, consisted of a pack of trees somewhere downtown. But Problem Solved!!

Note To Self:

Anybody remember the basket weave baby hat?? AKA...my favorite baby shower present...well it doesn't fit 6 month olds...baaahahahaha



Anybody remember the pope hat?? The one that definitely would not have fit my 25 year old friend it was made for...it does fit 6 month olds. Lesson learned - The GAUGE is there for a REASON. USE IT!!!



Disclaimer: Don't judge her outfits (lack of). My child spits up a lot. You would think that moving up to solid foods would help, but it just makes it color coated and stains all of her cute outfits. Oxy clean is my new best friend. I've learned not to put anything cute on her unless we're going out.

Redneck Tank Top

Now as you all know I'm pretty thrifty and take pride in my roadside treasures. Just last week we found a porch umbrella, a wooden trellis, wicker chair with nice cushion and a round black iron side table to match our outside chairs and table that people were going to throw away! I also enjoy finding good deals,using coupons and sewing usable things out of old clothes/tee shirts. But I ask you... Who stands and looks at a pair of men's briefs and says hmmmm...I can make me a nice summer top from these!! On the other hand...$6 for a three pack is a good price!! But what if they weren't bought new? That's redneck recycling at its best. Ladies...Don't throw out yer feller's drawers when they don't fit no more... Just cut the crotch out and wear 'em!! Hahaha!