Bangs

Little Miss Sadie got her first haircut the other day.

Daddy insisted that the hair covering her eyes wasn't working. While I agreed with him, I was reluctant to cut the hair since my preference would have been to let it grow out until it could be tucked behind the ears.

But I gave in the other day when I was watching her walk around the house barely able to see (that's an exaggeration). Poor thing. :(

(One of the benefits/drawbacks of being part of a family is that no one in the family ever really looks as you critically.)

I want to note that the PJs that Sadie has on, Novalee wore when she was three. Yep, it's true. It's kind of hard to believe. Sadie turns 18 months on the 9th of this month.

But after looking at these pictures I realized her hair was really out of control.

Sadie was fine with me combing her hair down because she is used to me combing her hair and telling her what pretty hair she has. (I kind of think she is aware that Novalee has long, LONG pretty blonde hair and wants hers that way too.)

But she started to freak out and cry when I brought out the scissors which of course made trimming her bangs challenging.

I realize her bangs look choppy but they are actually pretty straight...according to me. :)

They aren't my favorite, but she does look more put together and I don't have to pull her hair back everyday.

We also think she looks a little more grown up. :)

Not to mention that she looks even more like my sister when she was a little girl. Someday one of my kids will look like me...I'm not giving up until one does!

Just kidding! :)

Baby Kinsley's Blankets

My wonderful in-laws got me a super great gift for Christmas this year.

What a complicated little beauty!

It's what I wanted and I was so excited to get it.

BUT serger's to me seem like engineering or car repairs. Whenever someone I know who does either of these things goes any further into what they do than just their job title, my brain just shuts down and I stare at them blankly (nodding politely of course) while I try to stay focused but am actually thinking about other things. :)

So it is not too surprising that the beautiful serger sat in it's box until this week. Just to excuse myself further for taking this long to open the box I have to also say that my kids are brutal to my sewing machine.

Anytime I leave for a moment, I will come back and find that the presser foot is off, or the stitch has been changed or the thread is no longer through the needle. (AHHH! I must really love sewing or a challenge or SOMETHING to put up with it). And TRUST me, they have been told over and OVER and OVER again not to touch mommy's sewing machine. I'm actually surprised it's lasted this long...knock on wood.

Anyways I would have and probably will FREAK OUT if the serger gets the same treatment from the kids. And so I have kind of been waiting for a special spot in the closet to open up where it can safely be put away after each use.

That finally opened up. I got the serger out of the box. I watched both "Easy, How To" videos and then had a little panic attack.

Why would they show videos of the serger is such poor lighting that you actually can't see what they are doing? It was so frustrating to watch. I must have kept stating my frustration out loud because Novalee finally said, "Who gave this thing to you mom? Can't you just send it back to them?" Haha. She's so cute.

My desire to serge must have been stronger than my desire to give up and pack it up permanently because I decided I would do like the old NIKE slogan and "Just Do It."

It actually wasn't too complicated after all. Sigh. But I still am not sure how to finish off the stitch when I'm done. Oh, well. Eventually I will figure it out. Oh and I only know the one stitch, the one it was set up for to begin with. :)

(Wow I must need someone to socially interact with, this is a lot of typing just to introduce my blankets for baby).

Here are the swaddling blankets. I made five. No, there is no theme...I probably didn't need to say that, since you could guess by the pictures. :)

Oh yes, I'm proud of myself thus the multiple pictures. :)

I can't wait until we can swaddle our newborn in them and they will smell of the sweet newborn baby smell!

And you know how I made Sadie and Novalee matching blankets?

Well I had lots of left over fabric so Novalee made one for her doll.

Then I tried making one for Kinsley for the crib...

But you might be able to tell from the picture that it's too narrow... :(

Oh well, it's done and I'm over it. I have another one in mind so hopefully it turns out better. :)

Novie's Five!

Novalee turned five on Valentine's Day.

For her birthday she got to have her first non-family birthday party.

She was so excited and wanted to invite almost every girl she knew...regardless of age.

I told her she could invite 5 since she was turning five.

After much deliberation she started writing her invite cards only to change her mind again. I guess it's a good sign that she likes so many people. :)

I was kind of freaking out inside about having 5 other girls in the house. Thankfully Wesley offered to take Jared and Sadie to the park during the party, thankfully Wesley was even home and thankfully only three of the girls showed up. :)

We played musical flowers, pin the crown on the princess, toe grab, and fishing for treasure.

The toe grab was the best game we played! There were marbles at the bottom of the kiddy pool full of water and the girls had to pick up the marbles with only their toes and put them in smaller containers. The person with the most at the end of the game got candy, which of course was all the motivation they needed.

I worried that they wouldn't be able to pick up the marbles with their little toes but they were actually surprisingly good. I was also worried that the girls would fall into the pool and be wet the rest of the party but luckily the only one to "fall" into the pool was Novalee.

They were pretty silly girls. It was fun to see Novalee having so much fun!

After games we had princess cupcakes and pink ice cream.

Novalee loved the new top that her cousin got her. I really liked it too. I'm sometimes reluctant to get accessories for Novalee since she is pretty picky about them but she wears the faux fur top a lot. Good job Evany! :)

Novalee wanted to show off her style! :)

Novalee with her friend Lucy.

Even Sadie and her other cousins got some of the treats!

And then the sugar kicked in and thankfully it was right about the time for the party to end. :)

The party went really well! The only thing I might not recommend is letting 4 five year old girls "help" you empty a full pool that is set up in your dining room. I mean having them step on the sides to empty it outside is good, except when the side of the pool isn't actually ALL the way out the door and the water empties onto your floor instead.

On Tuesday, her actual birthday, Novalee and I had girl day that even included someone giving her a flower (thank you liberty tax people for trying to promote your company right outside the restaurant we were eating at it made my daughters day).

I love seeing Novalee grow up each day. I love her creative ideas, that she loves to get dolled up and play with her baby dolls but still can scare the snot out of just about any boy she knows with her fierce, competitive, strong willed spirit. I love that she is thoughtful about others feelings and while she doesn't always choose the right, she is very concerned about what is right. She is such a good big sister, she is so willing to share her toys if Sadie is sad, to help her try new things and to give her lots of loves (sometimes more than Sadie wants). She is very funny and always tries to ease stressful situations with extra loves or humor. I can't imagine our family without her and I love everyday spent with her.

We love you Novalee! Thanks for making life special!

So Cozy!

I thought I should see what Sadie would do in her new bed today at nap time. I tucked her in with her blankie and "Mazy" the singing seahorse (thank you Grandma Lynne) and I closed the door.

I half expected her to be playing the next time I checked on her but was in for a pleasant surprise.

We love you Sadie! Thanks for being a good girl!

Hopefully she doesn't fall off...we should probably invest in a guardrail if this is going to happen more often. :)

New Blankets for the Twin Beds

This summer Wes and I painted the girl's bunkbeds purple. I love them! I love how great they look with the purple curtains and the girls cute purple chair.

But Novalee's blanket was pink which is great. I think pink and purple are lovely colors. However I can't really stand them together.

Anyways, I decided to make matching blankets for the girls that matched better with the bunkbeds.

So I took the girls to the store and I told Novalee she could choose any fabric she wanted. OF COURSE she picked out (what I thought was) the ugliest colored fabric and OF COURSE it had to be blue, NOT purple.

Try as I may she didn't budge and what can you do after you already said she could pick out ANY fabric?

Well after thinking about it for a while...couple of months (but who's counting) I finally decided to sneak in the color I was really looking for.

I used this pattern.

The progress went amazingly fast even with this little helper.

Yep she's pretty proud of herself.

I did try and distract her with markers.

It might have worked out better if the markers were washable.

Here's how the blankets turned out. The two blues were Novalee's fabric choices. :)

I needed a way to tell them apart, so Novalee's has two butterflies on the corner.

She was so excited about the blanket! But of course was disappointed that she couldn't use her pink one at the same time.

This is Sadie's.

And here they are together.

I love how clean and put together the room looks with the matching blankets! Now we just need to convince Sadie that the big girl bed would be more cozy for her than her crib...

Things Redneck Crocketts Do For Valentines Day

I realize it's not yet Valentine's Day. But we celebrated it this weekend.

What did we do, you ask?

Well it didn't include roses

or cards

or dinner out

or a nice limo ride

or dancing (not that we are really capable of that anyways) :)

or a hot air balloon ride

or a weekend getaway to the beach

or even a kid free night...

Us Crockett's(The Oregon ones) tend to either fall into one of two categories when we do anything. Either redneck or hippy. (Not saying that we don't branch out sometimes. :) I think we've done classy a few times too and maybe even adventurous.)

Anyways I would like to think all the redneck activities come from Wesley and all the hippy, tree huggin' ones come from me. :)

For our Valentine's celebration we got tickets to MONSTER JAM!

Oh yeah baby! :)

This was Jared's favorite truck there, he happens to own a Hot Wheels Version of it so naturally it must be a favorite. :)

The truck I was rooting for to win of course won...right after it burst into flames! Totally didn't expect that to happen.

Novalee was excited to find out the Tasmanian Devil was driven by a girl.

Both kids had so much fun and couldn't help but quiz us the next morning over breakfast.

Jared's question: "How long has the Grave Digger been driving?"

Novalee's: "Did you know that the Tasmanian Devil beat all the boys this morning (yesterday afternoon)? " :)

I know, we're cool and you wish you could be like us. ;)

(One more thing I can check off my life list of things I want to do.)

Happy Valentines!

Dressed Up or Dressed Down, Still Cute

About a week ago Sadie went upstairs to play when it was just the two of us at home. She was being really quiet and I was just about to go up and check on her when she came down looking like this.




Can you tell she wants to be just like her big sister when she grows up? She does. Besides saying Mommy and Daddy, she now says Nona, which is Novalee. :) Novalee is one of her favorite people to see and when Novalee is playing nicely with her, it just makes her day.

(And no we didn't already have baby #4. The swing was recently given to me by my sister and both girls have enjoyed putting their dolls in the swing and swinging them.) :)

Well that's Sadie dressed up.

This is how she looked last night. :)

Is the heart tacky? I thought she would appreciate when she was older not having her whole bum posted on a public blog. :)

Let's just say she really LOVES her rocking horse too. :)

As a side note did you know picnik.com is not going to be available after April 19th? I'm not sure how I'm going to edit my photos after that for free... I guess all good things have to come to an end. :(