Little Women

 I have the funnest calling ever!  I'm in the Young Women's, put specifically in charge of Personal Progress!  Let's do some PROJECTS!!  Perfect, right?!  Recently, we had a sleepover with our girls and everyone sewed up some pajama pants to count as one of their big value projects!

 (I brought these cupcakes in cute wrappers, which you could also win at this week's giveaway!  Clearly, I'm having a lot of fun with this new hobby!)

These girls are the cutest!  Its funny how a few weeks ago, I didn't know or care about any of them, and now I think about them constantly and love them SO much!  It takes me back to my junior high teaching days.  I'm so proud of their successes and want them to be happy and grow and accomplish good things in life!  And we're having lots of fun planning future projects together :)

The Very Hungry Cater-Parley

Parley is still the world's best baby!  He fills our home with delight!  Happy 5 months old!!

Nothing has changed since the moment he was born--he's still such a peaceful, mellow, happy guy who never cries or demands much of anything!  He has become very rolly and squirmy and is just antsy to start crawling!  I can't turn my back for a second if I set him on the couch--he will have practically rolled and wiggled himself off already.  He has a lovely head of fuzzy hair and an intense grip when he gets a hold of something he wants!

After a single rough night of sleep training, he's instantly a sleep-through-the-entire-night kind of guy!  I tried to mimic this picture of Lincoln at 5 months old for the Hungry Caterpillar nursery that now belongs to Parley.  Cute guy!  We love having Parley in our family!!

Sneaky Peek

Here's a preview of what's to come this Halloween! 

 

I had to stay ahead of the game on sewing up our costumes so I could do a review for Halloweencostumes.org and thank them for these cute props :)

And remember how its Friday, and every Friday I post new giveaways at Dandy Giveaway?!  This week you could win a skinny tie toddler shirt HERE, two bags of granola HERE, $25 to Sweet Pea Maternity HERE, and a Prima Princessa Nutcracker DVD HERE!

Scaredy-Fish

Yesterday, we took the kids to the pet store to see some animals, thinking it would be a chill, enjoyable, yet exciting activity for Lincoln.  Nope.  He was TERRIFIED of everything in that store.  Would not go near the hamsters.  Screamed bloody murder to get out of the bird room (and we have a bird, remember?).  Yelled out in terror and ran every time a dog came in to be groomed.  We were practically twisting his arm to stay in the fish isle while we picked out his first pet to take home.

And this is practically the closest he'll go to his new friend the fish.  What a fearful child!

Giveaway Girl

You dedicated readers may think you know everything about me by now, but did you know that I am extremely and abnormally lucky?  Really, my luckiness astonishes even myself, and it has blessed me with many a free treat. 

The summer we were interning in Houston, one day my SIL Carla won something on Dandy Giveaway.  She told me about this site that does a giveaway every Monday, and you pretty much just leave a comment to be put in the drawing to win things.  I was so intrigued and thought I'd see how far my luck could take me.

Since then, I’ve spent 5 minutes here, maybe 10 minutes there, and won over $1,140 in free merchandise from various blogs.  Practically anything cool I own came from a giveaway: jewelry, wall decals, flu shots, spa kits, sunglasses, etc.  Not to mention all of our baby announcements, Christmas cards, my sewing business cards, stamps with Parley's face on them...We are, after all, a mere paycheck away from qualifying for food stamps.  How else could I get such fun luxuries?!

And now, enter my newest hobby/part-time gig: I’m a giveaway girl!  With a fortunate turn of events, Dandy Giveaway has added me to their team!  I will be a blogger every Friday on Dandy, featuring some item, shop, business, or company and running a giveaway!

This week, you could win:

 

a set of rainbow cupcake liners & four extra large frosting tips from Cupcake Essentials 

(enter HERE)

 $25 to spend at Meesh & Mia (enter HERE)

and a hand-knit item of your choice from Lil Bumpkins Boutique (enter HERE)!

So every Friday, check out the sweet giveaways and enter mine, because nothing would please me more than my family and friends winning free things :)  And may my magical luckiness be bestowed on all of you giveaway enthusiasts!  Go win something!

Cami's Special Day

There once was a girl named Camille you see,

All proper and quaint, and sweet as a pea.

She soon found her knack for singing and dance,

She draws you right in, puts you into a trance.

She's smart and she's witty

And altogether quite pretty

She'll make you laugh, that much is for certain,

You better watch out, or she'll sew you some curtains.

I fell for her hard, as everyone knows,

So hard in fact, it was just weeks till I proposed.

In case you didn't know, we're 26 now to boot.

And we already got kids, and boy they're a hoot.

Cami, the journey's just begun for our crew,

We're in this forever, and in years that's not few.

On this special day Cams, there's one thing you should know

Something that entails no sneaky quid pro quo

To our sweet mom and wife, we'd like to say,

WE LOVE YOU SOOOO MUCH!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

6 in 6 for 16 - SEPTEMBER

 

I LOVE September!  Perhaps I just love it because its my birthday month, but thinking about September has always given me warm fuzzies.  Glorious Fall, new classes, new projects, new possibilities.  For this month, I fell in love with the outfit on the left and wanted one just like it.  I searched and searched, and never really found a yellow fabric I liked.  What I came up with ended up looking so utterly '50s diner, that I had to make a different top.  Can't you just picture a little name tag with "Brenda" on it?

I rummaged through my fabric stash and found this beautiful oriental silk.  I was sure my aunt Margie had sent it to me from Korea, but she couldn't verify.  Wherever it came from, it confirmed all my beliefs that SILK IS SO HARD TO WORK WITH!  So slippery.  So temperamental.

 My adorable friend Jessica took these pictures while we were having an Eastie Girls Crafty Night.  See her cute blog and cute baby here.    THANK YOU Jess!  What a professional, right?

See my JUNE, JULY, & AUGUST dresses!

A Winner!

We have a random winner of the lovely tagua bracelet from the Hobo Jo Collection: LOUISE!  Please contact me or Michelle with your info so you can get your lovely prize!

Thank you to everyone who supported the cause and helped spread the word!  Best of luck to you Michelle in all your exciting business adventures! 

Stuffed Turtles

In case you have a teenage sister obsessed with turtles and want to make her some of these, I used a great tutorial found here: http://www.makeit-loveit.com/pattern-pieces

Oh Ohio!

Just giving Lincoln some good suburban lifestyle experiences made the trip well worth it!  He spent every minute outside soaking up the joys a backyard brings.  Definitely definitely getting him a basketball hoop for his birthday.  My little brothers were the perfect playmates for him!  My kids may never have any cousins their age on my side, but they'll have Uncles who are!Grandpa finally got to meet his namesake!  My daddy, Robert Dean, got released as Bishop on Sunday, and put in the Stake Presidency as 2nd Counselor!  Yikes!  My parents made sure baby was dressed in the appropriate game wear for the Ohio State game :)

 And little man got his first taste of baby food!  As expected, after the first taste, he started lunging for the spoon.  We've got another foodie in the family!

Friday night we went to the Beavercreek football game where we crushed Carroll 63-0!!  Janae and Evan are the marching band geeks this year :)  I love you guys.  Evan rocks the sideline on percussion!  I'll never understand the appeal, but I'm glad everyone else in my family likes it.  I will seriously be the only of 9 Hancocks to not march.  Long live showchoir.

 Janae got her early Christmas present!  If you know Janae at all, you understand how five stuffed turtles and green kitchen utensils would rock her world.  I'll post the pattern for these cuties sometime this week.  I named them Guido, Ursula, Blanche, Sparky, and Delicious. 

Jason got to 'play' with some power tools in my dad's shop.  He made me something super great for Christmas!  Wait and see what it is!

And a 12 mile bike ride!  Once I got over my fear of a little boy swerving in front of me and running my baby into the trees, we had a grand time!  THANK YOU mom and dad for letting us stay the week!