Just Call Me Martha Stewart!

I have finished both the pillows for Sophie's play room and they came out pretty good if I do say so myself! The small one I did first and it is a little lop-sided, but hey I am pretty much a beginner and I had to start somewhere, so I learned from the minor mistakes I made with the first one and the second one, the oversized floor pillow, came out fabulous! Sophie was so excited to finally jump on it and have somewhere comfy to sit and read her books. I am quite proud of my little sewing experiment and my cute sewing machine that I purchased for a mere $24.99 did an excellent job and so far was well worth the money. Now that I have two pillows under my sewing belt I am eager to try to make some more stuff, but as my friend Elizabeth would say, "I know my limits" and in sticking with that theme of knowing my limits I think I will just "limit" myselft to square/rectangular things for now, so I guess that only leaves me with making pillows. Anyone need some pillows???????

The Finished Product

Yay!!! The owl sheets arrived on Tuesday and I am not sure who was more excited me or her! Then the owl pillow sham arrived yesterday and today we went to Mary Jo's and got some batting to fill the pillow sham with for $2.19 because I was not about to pay Pottery Barn $10 plus tax for a pre-formed pillow! For those of you who are not from around here Mary Jo's is the fabric stores of all fabric stores and is quite intimidating for someone like myself who knows nothing about fabric or anything that goes along with fabric, you really could get lost in there! We made our way quickly in and out of Mary Jo's after getting a quick info lesson on batting from the nice lady at the counter, I am sure that I sounded like a complete idiot not knowing anything about something as simple as batting, but hey I've got to start somewhere! Once we got home Sophie very willingly helped me pull apart the batting and stuff it inside the pillow sham, I think that she was so excited to be tearing something apart with out getting scolded for it! So with all that done, the "Big Girl Owl Bed" is now complete! Now I am thinking that I want to paint some owls, birds and possibly some trees on the walls......who knows, it seems I am always trying to start a new project, I have to do something to keep myself busy, otherwise I will lose my mind or what little there is left of it!!!!

Speaking of new projects, not only have I decided to start Scrapbooking from scratch, and I say "from scratch" because in the past I used the scrapbooks from Hallmark (Thanks Mom!) with the pre-made pretty pages and I would just add my pictures and a few more embellishments or stickers and boom instant memories, but now I am scrapbooking like a big girl and making my own pages and the two that I have already done I am pretty proud of. The second is a little better than the first, but this like anything else is a learning process. So Yay me!

The other project I am attempting to start today is making pillows for Sophie's play room. I have had fabric left over from making Sophie's baby doll bedding since last year, yes, I said last year, I have been wanting to do this since last year! I finally got my butt in gear and before hitting up Mary Jo's today we went to one of our favorites Target, to pick up a small starter sewing machine for myself, a cheap $24.99, we'll see how this goes! Wish me luck, I will be sure to post pictures no matter how badly the pillows turn out!

Check out these cool frames I found at Target they match her room PERFECTLY!!

Sophie's Movin' On Up!

Sophie has said farewell to her toddler bed, and hello "Big Girl" bed or "Owl Bed" as she likes to call it. She calls it her owl bed, because the new bedding has owls on it, well at least the sheets have owls on them and we got her a small pillow that also has an owl applique on it (the sheets and pillow have not arrived yet, the sheets in the photos are just a spare set that I bought until the others arrive in the mail). She has been so excited about getting her big girl owl bed, ever since she saw the picture of the bedding set in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog.

Thanks to potty training Sophie is now a frequent visitor to the downstairs bathroom where there is a vast array of catalogs to choose from while taking care of business, one in particular that Sophie has taken a liking to is the Pottery Barn kids catalog. In flipping through the pages one day she happened upon the owl bedding and has been infatuated ever since, thus sparking the interest in the big girl bed. We have been thinking about converting her toddler bed to it's full size or double bed for sometime because she just looks so cramped. We thought maybe it was a little premature since we felt like we just switched her to the toddler bed a couple months ago, but after a while all she could talk about was "big girl bed, big girl bed, owl bed, Mama, Pwease!" So here we are with our Sweet Sophie growing up way too fast right before our very eyes. I will admit it was a little sad to see the toddler bed go, but this is just one more chapter starting and ending another. I will post some more pictures when the final pieces of the bedding arrive so that you can get the full effect! Can you tell I'm excited too!?

Our Very Own Tinkerbell

Here are some adorable pictures of Sophie frolicking about the house and playing hard in her new Tinkerbell costume courtesy of my friend Beth. Sophie loves the costume and keeps saying, "I wear dress like Tinkerbell". Thanks Beth, it's a hit!!!

Fancy Nancy Gets New Underwear Too!

Not only did Sophie get all kinds of new underwear for learning to pee on the potty, but so did Fancy Nancy! Auntie Nancy, the one who started Sophie's obsession with Fancy Nancy and who is also the supplier of all things Fancy Nancy from clothes to books and accessories thought that Fancy Nancy needed some new underwear too. Yesterday, Sophie received a very exciting package in the mail from Auntie Nancy and in it , like most packages from Auntie Nancy, was an outfit for Fancy Nancy (aka Nancy Nancy, according to Sophie). This was not just any old outfit though, no, no, no, it was the cutest little bra and underwear set with polka dots on it! Sophie was so excited she immediately looked at me raised her hands, cocked her head and said, "Where Nancy Nancy go? I go find her!" Off she ran to the play room and came darting back with Fancy Nancy in hand and began stripping her down so she could put on the new underwear. The card enclosed congratulated Sophie for using the potty..........Thanks Auntie Nancy, you think of everything!

Here are some cute pictures of Sophie running the loop of our house through the kitchen, office, foyer and front hall with Fancy Nancy in tow!

Looks Can Be Deceiving.....

She may look sweet and innocent with her sleepy morning eyes and her "Princess Tutu", but my little angel decided that today was the day that the Princesses would indeed meet their destiny.......the oven. Sophie loves to store her Princesses in the oven of her play kitchen for a reason that I can not comprehend. But hey, she has fun and who I am to tell her that the Princesses don't really like the oven?

She also had a grand time watching herself make silly faces in the mirror. It is hilarious to watch her entertain herself!

A Little Snow

Okay, so the snow we got was NOTHING like the snow Neal and I experienced growing up in Boston and Pittsburgh, but down here in the South we will take what we can get. Around here we typically only get snow once a year, so we made the most of the light dusting of snow that we got and went out to play in it. Of course Sophie was so excited she kept saying, "Oh wow, snowy!!", she was running around exploring the yard I had her so bundled up though it was a little hard for her to bend over, poor thing. Since snow is not really a recurring thing for us there is no need for snow pants or any other winter like clothing so I had her bundled up in two pairs of leggings, two pairs of socks, jeans, a long sleeve onesie, a long sleeve shirt, her jacket, a vest thing over her jacket, hat, mittens, and scarf...phew, oh yeah and shoes of course. So needless to say it took us a little while to get outside. We played for quite a bit roaming around the front and backyard, sitting at the picnic table in the front yard enjoying some Goldfish, and finally took a short wagon ride down the street and I say short because at this point I could not really feel my face, fingers or toes. It was so much fun to see the wonder and sheer joy on Sophie's face as she experienced the snow.

Cleaning off her slide.

More cleaning using her pine needle brush.

Enjoying the view from on top of her castle.

A little snack in the snow.

I love this picture, I have the same shot of her last year when it snowed!

Inauguration Of Barack Obama

Sophie was gracious enough to allow me to have control of the television for a few minutes in order to watch the swearing in of the 44th President of United States. I also wanted her to see it, even if she is only two I wanted to say that when this momentus and historic event happened that she witnessed it, even if she won't remember it. So as we are watching the events unfold and I am tearing up at the awesomeness and the powerful words of President Obama's speech Sophie is watching alongside me and clapping everytime the crowd claps and saying, "Go Bobamabama" and "Yay Bobamabama!". She made me smile as she always does, my sweet, sweet Sophie.

Neal Slimick Photography

It could be just because I am his wife, but I think he is so, so very talented and now he has decided to share his talent with others. For a couple of years now, Neal has had several freelance photo jobs ranging from photo sessions with friends to things as big as the John Deere Catalog, all of which he landed due to word of mouth . So, now he has made the decision to take his talent and his passion for photography to the next level. He is now Neal Slimick Photography!!!!! Please keep Neal in your prayers as embarks on this new exciting journey! I am so proud of him. He has started up a blog of his own to showcase some of his most recent work, click HERE to visit his blog.

Hairdryers Aren't Just For Drying Hair........

No, no, no, in the Slimick household you can use a hairdryer to unfreeze your kitchen sink pipes! I should say pipe, singular, because only the cold water pipe froze, so all day long we could use the hot, warm, and luke warm, but the minute we turned the faucet past the halfway mark into the "cold" area BAM nothing. So after dinner Neal used my hairdryer to unfreeze the pipe and he had a little helper. It took a little bit, but after about a half hour of hairdrying the pipe we now have cold water again in the kitchen. HOORAY! Note to Slimicks: When it gets into the teens alway leave faucet dripping! Ooops.

Neal looking so stoked about the task at hand.

Sophie running in circles around me as I try to snap her picture.

Daddy's little helper.

Gettting Cold in the Carolinas

The temperature is dropping here in the Carolinas and it is getting CHILLY, we woke up this morning to a frigid 13 degrees and a frozen kitchen sink pipe....ooops! Now if only we could get a little precipitation with all this cold weather so that Sophie and I could enjoy some SNOW and maybe Neal could get a snow day from work!!!! Sophie and I had some fun outside in the cold, we got all bundled up went for a walk and then came back to the house and played in the backyard, she even helped pick up a few of the millions of pine cones we have in the yard. I snapped a few cute pics of the fun! I like the new camera it is much, much lighter and easier to handle than the old one.

Pine cone pickin'.

Peekaboo!

Queen of the slide!

Swinging, her favorite

LOVES the Cozy Coupe.

Shooting some hoops.