Sunday Catch Up

The past two weeks have been a blur for me. After spending the first full week of the month in Lawton, we returned home and hit the ground running. With an Uppercase Living party, Cait's birthday party, niece Isabella's dance recital and then I started back to work part time that next week! On top of that, JC has driven to Norman twice a day for the last two weeks to take Brendan to his internship at the OU Flight Camp. We went to Tulsa for Father's Day Saturday as well.
When we got home from Lawton, we decided to get out the toddler bed for Cait. She's slept in it little bits, hopefully more and more in the near future.

Here are more pictures from Caitlin's birthday party. Gramma made Cait fun owl cupcakes to match her birthday shirt!

She enjoyed eating the cupcake and even fed some to her daddy. It was very sweet. Amazingly, she stayed pretty clean!

Isabella looked so sweet in her dance recital. And Cait danced to each song too!

We've been getting a little more broccoli, some green beans, jalapenos and quite a few cucumbers from the garden. I hope to can pickles soon!

Cait's favorite way of being naughty is climbing on Cam's lego table!

We stopped in Catoosa to see the Blue Whale on Route 66. It wasn't much but it was pretty neat. Look close, that's JC & the kids on the tail! We could see lots of fish and turtles in the water.

This used to be part of the park. I think all but the whale closed in the 80's. There used to be swimming in the pond and animals in the Ark.

Please be in prayer for our young friend, Quinn (12). He is supposed to get a bone marrow transplant from his younger sister next week. They started chemo Friday and his health has dropped to risky levels. He is in ICU right now with lots of problems from pneumonia, problems with his stomach and liver and breathing problems.

Embroidery Machine Applique Tutorial

*for Barbie :)
All thanks goes to my friend, Angela F, for teaching me how to use my embroidery machine. What a good friend to spend her time answering all my questions, coming over for a 101 session and helping me regularly.

I am slowly figuring it all out and venturing out to more and more projects. Cait's birthday shirt was an applique that I purchased from Planet Applique. {Fun stuff!} I did a #2 Candle applique on the back of nephew Jackson's birthday shirt as well. The dog on Walker's hooded towel is just embroidery stitching. A lot of it!

The # Candles and the dog paw below are also from Planet Applique.


I'll list the steps under each photo. Click on a photo to see more of it. Leave me a message if you have any questions!

When you have a design that is made for applique, it will (or should) have 2 outlines and then the final stitch. In this case the 3rd stitches will be a satin stitch.

Get your item prepped for embroidery. I use stabilizer on the front and back of a towel for this project. Hoop it and install the hoop into the machine. Run your first outline.

When it says to change thread, click okay. Press the button to cut the thread.

Leaving the hoop where it is, place a piece of fabric on top of the first outline. Make sure it completely covers the outline. Press start to run your second outline.

I run it a little slower for this and make sure the fabric doesn't bunch up. When it says to change thread, click okay. Press the button to cut the thread again and this time, remove the hoop but leave the fabric IN the hoop.

My mom bought me these great applique scissors but you can use any scissors. Now you want to trim all the extra fabric. Just cut along the outline. When you're done cutting, you'll have a a great idea of how your final project will work. (IF you are doing multiple fabrics like the owl on Cait's shirt, you would put it back in the machine now and run outline 1 of the next part, place your fabric, run outline 2 and continue on repeating these steps until you're done.)

Put the hoop back in the machine.

Now run the last outline, which in this case is actually a satin stitch. I also added a name after the applique and after a quick thread switch, I embroidered that as well.

And I hate this message because of that yellow triangle. That always scares me; I think something is wrong. Because things can go wrong quickly. And sometimes often.

But this says I'm done so I pull the hoop off the machine.

These purple scissors are great for trimming little threads and with embroidery machines, there will always be LOTS of little threads. I think it's easiest to take the item out of the hoop, then trim, then remove the stabilizer.

And that's it! You can find the towel tutorials HERE & HERE.

Her Actual Birthday

Cait's actual birthday was Sunday. After church and lunch, we packed a snack and water and headed out to the Omniplex. This was the first time going since Cait has been mobile. She got down right away and didn't want back up {until the end}.The boys were standing at the top of the Tree House, launching balls and Cait ran all over catching them. She realling likes balls and calls them "ba". {Can you find Cameron?}

She sat on the bed of nails with big brother.

She played in the little kid area; she really liked the water table.

She even enjoyed the Tinkering Garage. Cam really enjoyed this area. He worked on a project for about an hour in here. I am sad that I didn't get a picture of it.

And in the end, she konked out on a sofa while we ate our snack and relaxed a little before getting back in the hot Oklahoma air!

We weren't too tired so we decided to go to our first spray park of the year. Cait wasn't excited about it at all!

The boys had a lot of fun!

Finally Cait touched the water; but that was about it for her.

She decided to take a walk with daddy.

On the ride home, she let us know she had a wonderful first birthday!

What a fun sink!

2007

2011

Granny's sink is a fun place to bathe!

Oh Happy Day

Has it really been a year?

What a happy year! Happy First Birthday, our sweet Baby Cait!

You sure are a precious one!

We love you very much!

JHO, #2

More days of just hangin' out. Cam chilled out in his new chair, blowing bubbles.
This was the treat we found at Walgreens. It is hard to see but Cam is stomping on a stomp rocket. It was marked down 75% to a whopping $2.50! Cait just giggled every time Cam stomped on it.

Cam had great fun decorating his brownies. He was quite proud of his hard work, making his first batch of brownies with mostly just supervision from mom!

Most evenings Bren has been exhausted. He's been working hard for his Granny. He's been enjoying the pool and a little TV in the evenings. {Doesn't he look like a teen boy?! "Quit taking pictures of me, mom!" By the way, we're working on finding a fun trip for his upcoming 16!!! birthday. Let me know if you have any "cool" ideas!}

Watch out for the Green Lantern!

Bren made this hideout for Cait. She just loved it! Big brothers are the best!

We're wrapping up with our Lawton time. Next week, I will return to working part time for Gordon White Lumber. I'm excited to see old friends and to earn a little extra money this summer. I will miss my sweet babies though. Bren also starts his real intern work on Monday. I know he will do a great job! I hope he has some fun, as well. JC is continuing to see what his options are for our future and working on home projects while he is off for the summer. Please pray that God will give us directions and open the right doors for our family.

Just Hangin' Out

We're all in Lawton this week. JC and Bren are helping Granny work on her rental property. That leaves Cait, Cam & I to hang out. It is nice to be away from my to-do list but I've also had to purpose to do things with the kids, lest I sit in front of the computer & TV all day!
Thankfully, I checked out a couple audio books for Cameron. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi has been listed to at least 15 times. Maybe more!

We've had lots of pool time. The boys get in after lunch and everyone gets in after dinner. This was Cait's first time to get in (besides a quick dip Memorial Weekend, which she hated!).

Tuesday she wore her cute little swimsuit and was in the pool about 30 minutes. Great fun!

Monday, Cam had fun with chalk. Tuesday we made spray chalk from cornstarch & food coloring. We put it into a water gun and Cam had a great time turning things green. I sprayed Bren with it!

Today, the littles and I walked to Walgreens for some treats and Cam made brownies. He even cracked his first egg! We're going to decorate them tonight. Two more days and we're heading home for an Uppercase Living party and Cait's FIRST birthday party! Woo Hoo!!!