Christmas Play Dresses

I decided to break in my early Christmas present (a new Bernina sewing machine!) and make Lila some simple pillowcase dresses for Christmas time.



I followed this tutorial from aestheticnest.com, but there are a LOT of tutorials for pillowcase dresses available.  Lila got one long one with Christmas trees...

...And one short one with people Christmas shopping.

My plan is to make an apron for myself out of this same fabric.  And if Johnny is lucky, there might just be enough for a bow tie. Matching family!  I can't wait to hear what teenage Lila will think of it.

Thanksgiving 2012

We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!



Johnny, Lila and I headed over to visit his parents and sisters in North Carolina, and then we all went to North Myrtle Beach to meet up with the McDonald extended family.

Including significant others and friends, our family totaled twenty people and two dogs.

Lila loved hanging out with her Aunt Lauren.

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They were best buds



Lila also had fun meeting her great aunts and great uncles.

Johnny's Aunt Margie and Uncle Steven put us all up in their beach house.  And on Thanksgiving everyone (and by everyone I meant everyone but Johnny and me...wa ha ha it all went according to my plan!) chipped in cooking dinner.  His cousin Keaton and Keaton's girlfriend, Cassie, made the AMAZING turkey and Uncle Jack carved it.

I can't even pick a favorite side dish because it was all fantastic...though I did not try the creamed onions.  Maybe next year. 

Lila loved spending time with her Grampie.

And she made some fabulous strides in crawling.  She's almost there!  It helped that she had about nine cheerleaders every time she tried.

Lately, Lila is obsessed with feeling everyone's hair.  She really liked Uncle Keaton's too.

After our few days at the beach house, we stopped at Plantation Pancakes for a last brunch before everyone left.

Grammie took care of feeding Lila.  Her new favorite is pears.

After Lila was done eating, we passed her around, and she ended up sitting like a big girl with Miss Cassie and Uncle Keaton for awhile.

Before coming home to Kansas, we stopped by at the Hutsons' house, and Lila got to hang out with Allie.

Lila loves Allie and kept trying to say "Puh puh" for "puppy."

Allie was a very good sport.

I always love spending time with Johnny's extended family, but it was especially fun this year to meet Suzanne's boyfriend, Alex, and Keaton's girlfriend, Cassie.  It's also nice to get to talk more to Johnny's aunts and uncles and get to know better the people that he loves so much.  Adding a crazy fun baby to the mix doesn't hurt things either.

Lila at Eight Months

Lila turns eight months old today!  Not sure of her height or weight at this point...we just know she's nice and solid and immobile.



She demanded that her doll Rosie, given to her by the Rose family, be in the picture with her.



Lila and Daddy have had some fun time together this afternoon.

I decided to have us do a family photo shoot where the camera clicks three times in a row.

 

 

I don't think Lila was a fan of the three flashes.

Just Lovely

We are finally beginning the redecorating of our dining room and that means stripping wallpaper, ugh.



But beneath the striped and stained yellow wallpaper that we've grown accustomed to, look what we found!  Who wouldn't want their dining room covered in scenes from Colonial America?  A beautiful horse and carriage...

A woman with a fan going to church...

Just lovely isn't it?

Saturday

Blogging has fallen by the wayside this week.  Not much has been going on, and I've also been distracted by reading these books that I'm sure you haven't heard of.  I think Twilight is the name.  Like I said, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who's read them.  Yeah, yeah, I realize that band wagon left a long time ago, and I'm barely hanging on to the back bumper, but at least I don't have to wait for the next books and the movies like everyone else!

This morning, while I was waiting for Johnny to go pick up my "trashy romance novels" aka Eclipse and New Moon from Katie's house, I decided to make our once a year apple cider doughnuts.



Mmmmm.  There are no words to describe melting half a can of Crisco on your stove.  See why it's only a once a year thing?

I used this recipe from Smitten Kitchen.  I still need to buy a doughnut cutter, but a plastic cup seemed to work just fine. Notice the recently arrived book in the background as well as Lila's seven month photo that has been waiting to go in the picture frame for the last three weeks.

Once we were done eating our doughnuts, all three of us went out in the backyard to work on the leaves.  That little speck up in the left is Lila on a blanket.  She kept trying to eat grass and leaves.  She would grab a hand full and stuff it in her mouth without even pausing to look at it.  Yum.

After a day filled with Crisco, doughnuts, leaves, and Skyfall (Go see it right now! It is the best Bond movie EVER.), Johnny and I spent the evening bottling and spilling his latest batch of beer, an Irish Stout.  It isn't carbonated yet because that occurs in the bottles, but it already tastes really good.

We just sat down to watch an episode of Mad Men season five that we got in the mail from Netflix, and it took us seven minutes to realize that we had already seen this episode because it was in fact from season one.  Sigh.

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

Four out of Lila's five aunties were in town for a visit this weekend.  We got to hang out Friday night and have brunch Saturday morning.  Lila got completely spoiled and didn't even spit up on anyone in return.



We also found out today that Starbucks has their holiday drinks available!

I specially requested an extra cup for Lila.

It took a little figuring out. 

Can't start 'em too early.  We obviously need the practice.

Christmas Music Day

I know, I know, you hate this.  You hate walking through Target and seeing all the Christmas stuff out when we barely said good-bye to Halloween.  Unfortunately for you, I love it! Happy Christmas Music Day! (one day late...we were just too busy celebrating.  You understand.)



In honor of Christmas Music Day, I thought I would post photos of Lila's stocking that I just finished.  You might remember seeing Johnny and my stockings here from my post last year.  I made them for Johnny's Christmas present the Christmas before we got married.

Please tell my husband that is sad that I have to hang Lila's stocking on a hook in the kitchen instead of on a mantel, since I don't have a mantel