Cheater

No I'm not referring to the drawing a couple of days ago. Kinley seriously did draw Whitney's name on the first try. We then headed about an hour later to visit with Whitney and her husband Robby. Robby just happens to be Kinley's boyfriend too.

They immediately hit it off just like old times. But see that cute furry thing in the chair with them? Kinley definitely cheated on Bailey and Macy with this little cutie!
She and "Buber" or occasionally closer to his real name "Guber", spent hours running in circles on either end of his rope toys. Oh if only I knew how to get the videos off the camera. The giggling is too much.

We had a great time visiting with Whitney and Robby. Kinley also got to enjoy the company of Robby's parents and their cat for one night. She thought his dad's name was Honey. How cute is that? I'll quote Deidra, Robby's mom, and say the cat was smiling as Kinley was walking out the door to come home.

I'm sure you remember my post from our Raleigh trip. Traveling reeks havoc on Kinley's sleeping. This mommy has resorted to cheating this week. Monday I finally caved at about 3 and put her in the car to run a few errands which turned into no errands just Kinley's nap. Tuesday she cried for a whopping total of 46 minutes before I finally went in and patted her back until she fell asleep. Today it was "rock me" and "back" that kept us fighting off and on over a span of 2 hours. On the third attempt to get her to lay down in her crib, she fell asleep standing up. No lie. Too bad the freaking flash on my camera is so loud.
So this is the ultimate in my cheating for the week, Kinley...asleep...in our bed...What has happened to the sweet little baby that has gone straight to sleep within minutes of laying her down? No rocking, no patting, no singing, no nothin'. And how do you mommies do it when your kiddos don't like to sleep?

And the winner is....

Names in the hat:

aka 1970 tupperware container I still haven't returned to my mom since Christmas (sorry mama!):

Kinley drawing the name:

Showing off the winner:

For those without x-ray vision, it is Whitney. Congratulations!

Now will it be Alabama sewing or something for their dog...or both....hmmm...

Custom Sewing Giveaway

Okay, so this quilt:

Lovingly referred to by Kinley as Daddy's Pepper, has nearly killed my desire to sew. Or if I'm totally honest, my desire to sew on my sad little sewing machine. I nearly sewed it to death on this quilt. It was made with materials I'm not used to sewing on. The Dr Pepper squares are all jersey t-shirt type materials and the black and grey are flannels. This thing is so snuggly and warm. The only thing that made it all worth it is how much the thing is loved. I had to pry the pile of pepper out of someones grubby paws yesterday just to get it into the wash. It just might

be the most appreciated thing I've ever made.

So, in the spirit of finding my motivation to sew again and in motivating you to comment on my posts, I'd like to sew something for you! I frequently offer to sew for folks I know, but I think people feel bad saying yes. So here's your chance. I will make anything (within reason and my sewing abilities that is) that takes around a yard of fabric or less for free. You choose. I have tons of clothing patterns and free tutorials for kiddos. Boys and girls. I also have several sewing books with all kinds of patterns, Weekend Sewing, One Yard Wonders, Bend the Rules Sewing and Sew Special Fat Quarter Gifts. Most of those books have flickr groups if you want to check out what types of patterns are available in them. I also have several quilting books. I'm not opposed to making a quilt for someone, but it takes a lot more than one yard of fabric for that. If you win and are interested in a quilt or something else that takes more fabric, we can work it out. Most

likely you'll just be the one buying the supplies.

I've moved my sewing stuff down to the sitting room in our bedroom a few days before Christmas. This way Drew has the upstairs to himself, and it gives me motivation to keep on top of the mess in the sewing area. It used to get out of control when it was upstairs. I'm much better about keeping it clean, but it's still not perfect. I'm going to further attempt to motivate myself to finish the space. It's still very cluttered, and I haven't made the skirt for the cutting table to hide all those ugly bins. So for all the world to see, here is my messy sewing space:

Desk for my laptop, ironing board (sitting atop my empty Necchi sewing table...the Necchi is in the garage waiting for some repairs), my cutting and tracing table with all kinds of fabric scraps, battings, and other notions hiding beneath it.

The right side of the room with said sad little sewing machine, and serger. Those plastic bags on my sewing desk are full with the fabric for the table skirt. I really need to get in there and get to work....
Finally, the one area of the room that is practically complete. I found this shelf on sale for about 60% off at Ikea on New Year's Day. I wanted a place to store my fabric that wasn't stuffed inside yucky plastic drawers. It ended up being way larger than I anticipated and has lots of space for the rest of all my sewing bits. I just need to print some labels for the storage boxes, but they hold all my patterns and tracings....see I told you I had tons of patterns. Some of them are empty to have room for growing. Not in patterns but other notions. I will resist the urge to buy any new patterns. I have so many that I haven't even touched. See again this is where you come in in motivating me to use these patterns.

Okay, enough rambling. On to how you can win...the real reason you are reading. If you'd like have something sewn for you by me, just comment on this post telling me what you'd like to have made. I'll print out all the comments and put them in a bowl. Kinley will draw a winner on Friday...hopefully that will give you enough time to read this and decide what you want. I'll work on organizing my Picasa Sewing Projects page to actually include pictures of stuff I've made throughout the week. Here's my flickr page which has some overlap with the Picasa page. I may have to figure out a way to honor those few who have always commented regularly. You folks deserve something too. Hmmm, we'll see. Thanks for keeping up with the 100 posts of all the random happenings with the Bells.

And for those of you who only check here in hopes of find pictures of my cutie patootie, I will not disappoint. (Aka Nana and Papa...you should comment too!)

Kinley in her favorite place doing her favorite thing. She apparently got tired of waiting for me to brush her teeth this morning and took matters into her own hands while I was blogging. Better get off and go help. Thanks for reading....and thanks in advance for leaving a comment. ;)

Where did Kinley go?

Reward: $100,000

If you have any information on this missing child, please call her mama.

Name: Sweet Kinley Baby

Last Seen: The day before our trip to Raleigh. Went missing after being napless 4 out of 7 days.

Known suspects:

The Hotel Elevator:

and these two:

Reward money to be paid in the form of hours spent with Sweet Kinley when she returns.

Okay, so I'm only half way kidding. We had a great time visiting with friends and enjoying all our favorite places back in NC. The excitement was just too much for Miss Kin to handle. She managed to stay awake from 8 in the morning Saturday until about 5pm that afternoon when we were 15 minutes from the Peacocks' house. Once there, thoughts of running and playing with Emma and Corbin held off any thoughts of sleep. Add to that Daisy and Charlie, the canine members of the house and Chloe the cat, Kinley's newest bff, and there was no chance of sleeping for any sustained amount of time. For days.

We thought we'd give ourselves and the Peacocks some much needed rest on Tuesday and moved to a hotel. Once there, pushing all the buttons in the elevator ruined any chance of napping afterwards. We had two good nap days and those were only out of sheer exhaustion.

Most of you know it, but for those of you who don't, Kinley loves her sleep...so does her mama. We have a hard time getting along when either of us is in short supply of it. Add to that a hectic and stressful week for Drew at work, and we need a vacation from our vacation. A week is just too long to be away from home with a toddler. We loved the time we spent with friends, but man is it good to be home!

On another note, (if you're still reading that is) figure out how to post comments. This is my 99th post, and I have way less comments than posts. My 100th post will be a giveaway. It gets a little lonely typing away here without knowing if anyone is reading or if they care what they are reading about, so I'm going to give you some motivation. More information about what you can win and how to win it will be in that 100th post. In the mean time, here's how to post for you non bloggers and/or technologically challenged readers:

Under each post there is a link that says 0 comments (See I told you it was sad and lonely without any comments ;) Really it could be any number in front of comments, this is just an example)

Click there and an empty box that says post comment should show up. You type your message there. Once finished, you select an account to post with. You can use a gmail account, AOL instant messenger, etc or just use the anonymous option if you don't have any of those. If you select anonymous be sure to sign your name in the post, so I'll know who left the comment.

See, Easy Peasy, so stop telling me you don't know how. :)

I expect to be flooded with comments now. Don't hurt my feelings. I've had a rough enough week already. :)

Handmade goodies

This is from Monday. I realized as I was strapping Miss Kin into the car she was covered in handmade goodies. Handmade by others. Not her mama and I wanted to show them off. She's covered up in her blanket Kat and Kat's mom made her when she was first born. It has officially become her car riding blanket. We brought it with us the day we rushed her to urgent care in her pj's, and she has demanded her "blank it" every car ride since.

The hoodie is from the sewing swap I participated in back in October, and the bow is from a mom at story time. It's made to look like a butterfly. Sadly I don't even know the mom's name. She's Hannah's mom. Kinley despises bows or anything else in her hair. She is beginning to tolerate them only because the concept of hair poking in her eyes unless she wears one is starting to sink in. But on Monday I'm trying to get the pokey little puppy out of the door and she disappears into the bathroom. Several minutes later, she comes out butterfly bow in hand and request to have it in her hair. I guess she figured if she was going to suffer through wearing a bow she'd at least wear a cute one. At any rate, Thanks Hannah's mom. We're finally getting to enjoy your cute bow. It was really weird to me when I first started going to story time that we all just talked to each other about our kids and never knew each other's names. Now I guess I'm just used to it. I've still only gotten to know one mom's name outside of the mom's I knew before going. Crazy...Anyway, thanks for all your lovingly made goodies. Kinley sure loves them!

Finally something to blog about...

It seems like all my posts start this way now, but sorry for the delay. When it's cold and miserable outside it's difficult to motivate myself to do anything let alone photograph it and blog about it.

So with this beautiful weather today, I couldn't resist letting Kinley miss a little of her nap time to soak up some rays.

She is in love with this cozy coupe. So much so that we've had to hide it under a blanket in the garage. It was just too cold to enjoy it the last several weeks. Knowing

her she will wake up from her nap any minute now crying for her car.

Check out the breeze blowing her hair. It really was N.I.C.E. outside.

She had so much fun she decided she might be able to share with Drew.

She even let him take the wheel...for a minute...then quickly shoved him off the seat.

And please forgive the garbage can in the background. I swear I'm not advertising for them.

Happy, Happy to you!

Happy Birthday, Erin! Glad we could share it with you.

(Once again, thanks go to Heather for such a lovely photo.)

I suppose Happy, Happy to you could also apply to hoping everyone we love had a happy holiday season. The Bell family had a very Merry Christmas complete with a toy store worth of toys taking over our home. You can check out my picasa page, Erin's or Lee Anne's to see photos of some of the events.

Sorry to lag so far behind in updating the blog, but Kinley struggled with a cold that just wouldn't stay away for the two weeks surrounding Christmas. On Monday, we made an appointment to take her to the doctor for it but wound up heading to urgent care instead. She began throwing up and couldn't stop for several hours. Having your baby/toddler throwing up has got to be one of the worst things. You just feel so helpless. The nice doctors at the urgent care hooked her up with some anti nausea medicine that made her almost immediately better, some antibiotics for an ear infection and some cough syrup.

By the next day, Drew and I had fallen victims to whatever bug Kinley had the day before. It was A.W.F.U.L. I have never been so sick in all my life. It took days to get over the sleep deprivation and dehydration, but we are finally all feeling better! Thanks again Grandpa for helping us out on that yucky, yucky day, and Granny for coming the next to give us a bit of a break.

So anyway, sorry for the tangent and hopefully the new year will bring me plenty of time to keep up with the blog and us all good health. We've had our fill of the sickies.