Appliquéd Onesies

My friend Nicole who was our neighbor in EA, is getting ready to have a baby girl in about a month & a half. This is one miracle baby & we are all so excited for them. I wanted to make something for the baby before we left... something creative. Nic is super cute & creative so I had high aspirations for what I wanted to make for her little one. 

So I made these 3 onesies! 

For the first one I made this "Love" appliqué. I used heat & bond to fuse the fabric to all of the onesies before I sewed around the edges. I drew the letters on light cardboard, cut them out & traced them on the heat & bond. I cut the fabric, ironed it on, and then appliquéd around the edges with different color thread for each one.  

Then I made this simple birdie. 

Nice & girly. 

And finally an elephant. 

I used a template that I found here for this little guy. 

This was definitely my best stab at appliquéing without an appliqué machine. It wasn't too terribly nerve racking this time around either. 

This was the 3rd set of onesies I've made for a friend's babies- Jamie & I made these for our friend Brooke's baby Finn, and I made this one for Langdon last summer. This time I had fun using lots of scraps of fabric & different colors of thread to make them. It was a fun last use of my sewing machine that i LOVED.  

I hope baby girl will love them :) I'm sure she will look darling in anything she wears. Can't wait to see this little one that was prayed for for SO long!

I do miss that sewing machine. It was amazing. I gave it to Nicole when we came back to the states for her to enjoy. You may be thinking, "Aw how sweet of you to just give it to her..." well let me tell you, it was my pleasure to give it to them since I hurled a Wii remote into their flatscreen TV last year playing bowling- breaking it beyond repair. I killed their TV. So giving her my sewing machine was the least I could do after they wouldn't let me replace their TV. 

{still mortified}

Joyfully Appliquéing,

Linking up over at: {Whipperberry}{A Little Knick Knack}{Lizmarie Blog}{Somewhat Simple}

Let's Go Fly a Kite

Several weeks ago....like in April, we had days of WONDERFUL weather. Over the last month we have had THREE, yes 3 days with NO RAIN. Looking at these pictures reminds me of how stinkin beautiful this place really is.... regardless of the seemingly BLAH weather lately.  

This park at the foot of the mountains, that opened less than a year ago is right across the street from our neighborhood, and we have so loved enjoying it this year. 

This is the view of the park entrance from our neighborhood....

The view of our neighborhood from the park entrance. So close! 

Hannah and I have enjoyed almost weekly walks & talks through it over the last couple of months. 

This particular day, fields of these flowers were in full bloom and all was well here. 

So, what better day to go fly a kite? 

So we met a bunch of friends who happened to have new kites in the park, and sent them soaring... up in the atmosphere...

Up where the air is clear. 

We had a variety of fancy kites from squids...

To smiley faces...

To Hello Kitty...

And even some complicated trick ones that got tangled in the trees. 

There were also lots of super cute littles hanging out like this darling guy...

This sweet girl with her buggy crocs...

And this little tushie bearing split pants wearing doll.  

This cotton candy man was out, making cotton candy with his bike. He stands there and spins the pedal, which in turn makes the drum spin and makes tasty cotton candy. 

This is the "100 Steps Bridge" across the river {that actually is 100 steps}

It is currently impassable as the water is flowing over it after all of the rain we have had. 

But if the rain is what it takes to create this, it's worth enduring. 

I could make so many spiritual connections to that metaphor right now that are quite pertinent to my life, but I'll let you ponder on it yourself. 

I can't get over how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful, unique place. My friend who came to visit from another {extremely large, heavily polluted} city in the fall calls where we live "Pleasantville". 

When I instagramed this picture from our day:

She commented, "Plesantville showing off again."

And I'd have to wholeheartedly agree. 

AND one more reason why leaving this place in less than 3 weeks is going to be so.stinking.hard.

Joyfully soaking it all up,

The "DiDi" Onesie

I mentioned before that I took advantage of the extra supplies in America this summer to make some things for our friend's new little boy while I was home. I made him the "Manly" Monogram Frame, and a cute little onesie. 

I've loved the idea of using Heat & Bond and fabric to make onesies since Jamie & I made them for our friend Brooke this summer, so I really wanted to make Langdon one. 

Before we came back over, Ash asked me to grab a few more 0-3 mo. outfits for Langdon to bring over with us. 

I bought this cute little 3 pack at Target with elephants.

source

 I really liked 2 of the onesies, but the 3rd one I think is a little.... cheesy-ish. No offense if your child is sporting this. I just look at it and think, "Duh. He weighs 10 lbs... clearly he was born in 2011." 

So I decided that I'd spruce it up a little. 

So you may be asking, "If his name is Langdon, why in the world did you make it say DiDi?"  

In EA-ian, "Little Brother" is DiDi. Over here, everyone refers to everyone relationally- kids call me JieJie {older sister} or AiYi {Auntie} all the time. I call little girls MeiMei {little sister} and older ladies NaiNai {grandmother}. So it isn't uncommon for me to see a little boy and say, "NiHaoXiaoDiDi!" {Hello Little Little Brother!} just go with the grammar there. 

So as soon as they found out that they were having a boy, we all called the new baby "the DiDi"- since he has a GeGe {older brother}. Confused enough yet? {I went with "DiDi" instead of the actual characters: 弟弟。Might not be as easy to cut out and embroider} 

SO... I wanted to make him a special EA-ian "Little Brother" Onesie. 

I bought 2 different patterns of polka dot fabric at JoAnn's while I was home. I used this navy, green, and grey fabric to make a little "name plate" or background to cover the old embroidery. 

I fused the Heat and Bond to a little piece of brown and white polkadot fabric, and then cut the letters out. I ironed them to the bigger piece of fabric. 

Then I used yellow embroidery floss to line the edges of the letters. I wish I would have used a thinner floss, but that's okay. 

Then I fused the Heat and Bond to the back of the bigger piece of fabric, and ironed it onto the onesie. 

Finally, I lined the outside edge with the same floss. 

Ta-Da. 

The "DiDi" looked pretty darn cute in it too. 

Too bad he grew way too fast for me to even get a picture of him in it. Oh well, hopefully someone else will have a DiDi someday and can wear it once before they get too big too. 

Joyfully {Heat &} Bonding,

Linking Up Over At:
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Coming Home to Cute Kiddos {Week 1}

Okay I have to get out of this little slump and share about my highlights from being home so far. We spent our first week back in Nashville. The first few days were kind of a blur and it was about all I could do to stay awake and take everything in, nevertheless take as many pictures as I would like. 

But you better believe I got lots with this sweet little monkey! 

I've been counting down the seconds since the day he was born. His mama brought him straight to see me as soon as I woke up the morning after we flew in. I was SO happy to see the both of them. 

Give me some grace on the rough look... this was like hour 19 of being in America.

We spent the day together and got lots of snuggles and smooches.  

Then we spent more time playing together on the 4th.

How you doin?

He said, "I wuv my aunt hay-wee! i was beginnin to fink she fow-got meeee!"

I've got lots more since then too. Get excited. 

Then the next night, my Aunt & Uncle had a cook out to welcome us back. The theme of the night for me was disbelief over how much kids grew while I was gone.

Like these 3 CUTIES!

They are 3 of my cousins' girls who were all born during the summer of '07. 

I wrote about Madeline & Cady in this post last year. They are as cute as ever and OLD. 

And then sweet Mary Adelaide just topped the cuteness factor over the top. She is a hoot. 

Cady is still sweet and sassy to the max.

Madeline is 4 going on 14. I'm pretty sure I overheard her singing some Katy Perry. Not kidding. 

And her baby sister was a baby when we left. And now she's running around saying she wants her "baving shoup"when everyone is headed for the pool. 

And these sweet kiddos.... 

Davis & Will are twins who I felt like were babies last time I turned around and now they're going into 3rd grade and winning spelling bees. And they're all old and SO sweet. 

And don't get me started on Fin. I knew he was going to shoot up while we were gone, but I'm still in disbelief. He was my height when we left and now he's up there with Adam and has a deep voice. 

He was my sweet baby cousin for the first 14 years of his life... now he's my sweet not so baby almost 16 year old deep voice handsome cousin. 

Old. They're all OLD.... {insert wailing}

I told them all not to change while I was gone, and they ignored me. Thanks guys.

So that's about it for week 1 {I did other fun things but absent mindedly did not capture them}... but don't worry, next comes reuniting with my PUPPY! YES! 

Joyfully Loving the Kiddos,