Holy Cow! Where did November go?!!

Seriously! This month has flown by. I can't even believe next week is Thanksgiving. I don't know if you remember from last year, but I love love love Thanksgiving. Hands down, it's my favorite holiday. And I don't know about you but I'm already giddy with excitement for Christmas! We've already got some shopping done and I have all kinds of plans up my sleeves.

So speaking of Christmas, there is this little website I love called Youcanmakethis.com. It has lots of fun patterns for boutique type clothing. I absolutely adore all the cute skirts and girlie clothes. I sewed this for Maggie's birthday and I did a couple for Madi and Reagan for their birthdays. These are so easy to sew up and are stinkin' cute. I have made two of these for a friend to use in her photography. They are beautiful and I eventually plan on making one for Maggers. I've also done this and this for Maggie for her first birthday and Halloween last year. What's great about these patterns is you can use them over and over again unlike paper patterns once you cut they are only good for that size or smaller.

So do you get the point? I love the website. Anyhoo, I get their newletter in my inbox and they made an announcement for a challenge called Thrifty under Fifty. I quickly read through it and decided to apply expecting nothing. I never win anything and really have quite terrible luck. Well, I was chosen for a reason I will never understand. I totally assumed only 50 people applied and they had no choice but to pick me. I was very surprised to hear over 300 people applied. Cool, eh? So I'm 1 of 50 women (and a man from what I hear) that are taking on a challenge to make handmade gifts for as many people as we can for $50.00. That is quite a feat and an undertaking. But I love to sew and I love to digi scrap so the challenge I will accept. You can follow my progress on my blog and follow others progress by clicking on the button on the right. They are giving out free patterns, fabric, and cash prizes! Woohoo for me!

Here are a few pics of Maggers wearing some of the things I've made from YCMT.

Better late than never, right?

We had a very fun filled Halloween. This is a holiday I never really enjoyed while growing up (besides the candy) and as a young adult I loathed it. I don't like to call any unneeded attention to myself by dressing up like a moron. But with children, Halloween has become an all new exciting holiday. Since the time Ben was a baby, Aaron and I didn't want to dress him up in any cheesy store bought costumes (my opinion, don't be offended. Jeesh, I'm such a snob!). So I believe we were pretty creative in our quest for handmade and very cute costumes.

Sorry for some of the picture quality. Some were taken in the days before we invested in digital.

This costume was Aaron's idea. He painted the skull on the front of the onesie and then painted "got milk?" on the back. I just cut some sweats, a red sash, and a head scarf. None of the edges were finished but he was the cutest little pirate ever. He was only 8 weeks here.

This one wasn't the greatest but he was adorable. He is supposed to be Frankenstein. He was 1.

This was a fun one and actually has a little sewing in it. I just found a plaid shirt and some old jeans. I sewed patches all over then took fun foam and cut it into strips and sewed it in the shirt. I also sewed the hat. He is 2.

This year I really got into sewing and took some lessons. I was really excited to make the kids' costumes and really had fun with it. Ben's took a lot of time but it turned out adorable. Maggie's was fun. I just took a baby pattern and used fleece instead. I sewed on a circle for the belly and made the banana myself. Ben-3 and Maggie-6 months.

This year I spent more time on Maggies' costume. I completely sewed her little witch costume and we used the same hat Ben used as a scarecrow. Ben was really into The Super Mario Bros. last year. He wanted to be Luigi. I found the hat on ebay, I got the shirt at a store, and I sewed his little coveralls. They were adorable. Ben was 4 and Maggie was 18 months.

Ben had a star wars party for his birthday and wanted to be Darth Vader. I didn't have any time to sew anything, (I really didn't feel like it either) so I found one on the internet. This is the first completely bought costume. It was pricey so I told him if he wanted to be Darth for his birthday, he had to be Darth for Halloween. He was fine with it and had a good time. I bought a pattern with 4 different costumes on it for Maggie. I let her pick the one she wanted and she was all for being a pirate. She kept walking around the house saying, "I be a pirate, Arrrhhh, Matey!" It was a fun costume to sew up. Ben-5, Maggie-2

I know this has been a long one, but I had to share this video of the kids for my dad. It was supposed to be well wishes to grandpa and quickly turned into an arguement. I kept filming.