A Garden Party for the Girls

Our fall/winter vegetable garden has pretty much gone to seed so it's time to start preparing the soil for our spring garden. We thought we'd enlist the help of our girls and let them have a little garden party while doing some work for us at the same time.

We normally keep the chickens out of the garden with some netting so they were hesitant at first but quickly jumped in and went to town! We will let them work the soil for us for a few weeks with their pecking, scratching, and pooping. After they've had some time to nibble on them, we'll pull the old plants to make room for our spring plants.

Our baby chicks will be arriving in a few weeks so we figure this could be one last hurrah for the girls before they have to be nice and responsible again.

All You Need is Love...

A while back, Stefanie of Anna and Blue Paperie asked if she could use my {love} t-shirts for a Valentine's party she was planning. Her goal was to create a party that was affordable and easy to recreate. She blogged about the party styling here and holy heck, it turned out so incredibly cute.

I've mentioned before that I definitely don't have my act together enough to pull off such a coordinated party but this one has me thinking I should at least try it. I mean seriously, how adorable is this?

Maybe it's the fact that I have two boys or maybe it's because there isn't a lick of pink in my house, but I could just eat these girls up. Look at their little outfits! Perfect.

To see the full blog post including several more photos and some upcoming tutorials on how she pulled it all together, visit Anna and Blue Paperie's blog.

All You Need is Love printables - Anna and Blue Paperie (50% off until January 30th!)

Felt Treats - Ooh La Lollipop

Hair Accessories - Petit Fleurs by Bellasma

Cupcakes and Photos!

I have to apologize that I've been seriously lacking on my blogging lately. I don't know what it is but I feel like I'm still recovering from the holidays. In addition, the shop has been really busy so I'm sewing up a storm. Things should be slowing down soon so I will be back in full force - especially because I'm expecting my newest chicks (in the mail) next month and I'll want to share them with you. (Can't wait!)

Anyhow, I have to say that I am so ridiculously lucky to have such amazing customers. I cannot begin to tell you how much I appreciate them and the support they give me. A while back, I shipped off a Mr. Cupcake tee to Kate of Kate Bogot Photography. To my excitement and surprise, she sent me these super fun pictures that she took of her little guy. Isn't he so handsome? And a totally good sport - my boys would never cooperate for pictures like this.

Kate is such a sweet person and I am in love with her photography. It is absolutely stunning. I have spent a lot of time clicking through her website and admiring her work.

To see more of Kate's work, including the hilarious outtakes from the cupcake photo shoot, you can visit her here. Thanks again for these adorable pictures, Kate!

End of Year Recap {2010}

The last few months of 2010 were such a crazy whirl wind! I don't know about the rest of you, but things seemed to go by so fast that I never really got into the holiday spirit. Things just felt different this year and I never really caught up with things...anyway, here's the recap to the end of our year.

 

We got to spend Christmas with these amazing cuties who were hands down, the best gift for all of us this year. They pretty much slept through the whole thing but man oh man, were they the stars of the day.

We were delighted to give my mom her "papa" gift. My dad passed away a few years ago so each year my siblings and I get my mom a gift on behalf of my dad. This year, we got my mom two apricot trees and planted them for her. My mom LOVES her some apricots and she was so excited about her new trees. So was Finley (please ignore his weird hair - I have no idea what that was about).

Finley and Oliver were in heaven with their cousins around for Christmas. They are so blessed to have such a big family full of cousins who love them to pieces. It is so sweet to watch them all interact. 

We celebrated Finley's 4th birthday a few days after Christmas. I'm not one of those moms who has it all together to throw a picture perfect party complete with a sweets table and coordinated photos. However, I know that my little guy loves Mini Coopers and he went absolutely crazy over his amazing cake by Melissa at Decadent Delights. He didn't even want to eat the cake - he preferred to eat the fondant Mini on the top (makes my teeth hurt just thinking about it!).

And...we went to the circus for New Year's Eve! We had so much fun but I have to tell you...I froze my arse off. Remember that I live in the desert and we have had some icy, icy weather that doesn't bode well with my thin blood.

Fortunately the show was truly amazing and boys were in heaven.

After the circus, my husband went all pyro on us. Our town recently legalized fireworks for NYE so we had our own little light show at home. So. ridiculously. fun. After our light show, we tucked the kids in bed, popped a bottle of champagne and did a puzzle. A puzzle!! And to top it off, we had "Fellowship of the Rings" on in the background. If you had told me five years ago that I would be spending future holidays with puzzles and LOTR, I would have never believed you. But now, I wouldn't have it any other way. It was perfect.

Happy New Year to you, friends! Wishing you peace, love and joy this new year!

New Year + New Line equals {Sale!}

Happy New Year, friends! I promise to write up a recap of our Christmas, birthday, and New Year's celebrations this week. But until then, I wanted to let you all know that I am having a sale in my shop. Use the code NEWYEAR11 at checkout and get 20% off your entire order including already marked down items and the brand new circus collection (half of the collection is up in the shop - the other half will be up soon!)

Finley and Oliver