uncategorized Jay Hess uncategorized Jay Hess

10 months

Oliver James is now 10 months old! He is growing up so fast and we can't believe how quickly he is becoming a sweet little boy. His loves are Charlotte, the dogs, his mommy and daddy and food. We are now giving him table scraps as we call them. Basically he eats whatever we eat. I personally was also happy to see him take to Chick-fil-A nuggets so well. Charlotte only recently started liking them so I was delighted the first time we presented him with some nuggets and he devoured them. He can put away 2 nuggets pretty easily. He is a smily kid as long as he's not getting his finger pinched in a drawer. His exploration has started to get him into a little bit of trouble but most of the time he just crawls around and plays all day. We hope you enjoy these couple of pictures and a video of his newest and most favorite trick...crawling up the stairs.

http://youtu.be/yRHnIM2SH28

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charlotte, crafting, friends, melissa, oliver, sewing Jay Hess charlotte, crafting, friends, melissa, oliver, sewing Jay Hess

decking the halls

We as a family have been getting into the Christmas spirit by decorating, creating and sewing!  Early last week we had my parents come over for dinner and some decorating of our tree.  Charlotte had a blast decorating, Oliver loved playing with the ornaments and all the adults loved watching the kids be kids at Christmas! See if you can find the mittens that were required for decorating the very spiky Christmas tree! IMG_8366IMG_8410IMG_8418IMG_8381IMG_8449

Between the constant snow and the giant tree in our house the kids have been having a great time!  They have really used the Christmas tree as the biggest toy.  We have let them take select ornaments off and put them on about three times a day, needless to say the tree looks like a toddler and a baby have decorated it!

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This is the perfect time of the year to get crafty!  One of my bestest of friends came in this past weekend and besides going to a craft show we also did a good bit of chatting and eating, we had a chicken pot pie with her name written all over it!

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Charlotte and I have also been busy sewing!  She has taken a pretty big interest by sitting on my lap and helps lock my stitches and directs the fabric through the machine.  This is what we have been working on the past couple of days... burlap monogrammed stockings for all four of us and two pillows with the left over fabric!

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We hope that you are able to get into the holiday spirit by decorating and redecorating, creating and sewing like we have!

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-melissa

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family, food, friends Jay Hess family, food, friends Jay Hess

a holiday weekend

A great holiday weekend consists of a solid combination of good food, drinks, a packed house with friends and family, crafts, presents, new and old traditions and of course a good load of pictures.  I believe we covered all this weekend, just take a look! We had a great Thanksgiving day and packed the house with thirty family and friends.

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sibling turkey love...

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look at my ribbons!

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Started a new family tradition by hunting, cutting and dragging our Christmas tree at Corsi Tree Farm.

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the perfect tree was soon found...

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Charlotte had to make sure Daddy was doing an okay job!

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long walk back...

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And had a great visit with the Smith Family from Virginia.

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blurry picture of all of us at the Festival of Lights...

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and some cute kiddos playing at the park!

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some love for mommy at the park, photo credit goes to Ms. Jamie...

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time for some home made pizza, kids style!

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We have had a full weekend packed with memories spent with family and friends, let the holiday season begin!

-melissa

 

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crafting, sewing Jay Hess crafting, sewing Jay Hess

turkeys for our turkeys

I am lucky enough to have this whole week off from school and Jay has been home all week as well!  Needless to say, we have been pretty busy getting the house ready for our first Ohio Thanksgiving Dinner.  Between painting and decorating I have made enough time to do some Thanksgiving crafting of course! For Charlotte's first Thanksgiving I made her a shirt for the big occasion and I thought Oliver was due for one as well.  I scanned the web for some ideas and thought a charming tie idea for O would be excellent and C would look darling in one of those ribbon clad turkeys.

Both of these shirts were simple and cheap to make!  I used the same base fabric for both shirts, scraps for the detailed fabrics and bought 8 inches of ribbon from the off the spool stuff at JoAnn's.

I used the same appliqué technique as I do on all my quilt letters, I buy heat n bond in huge quantities… you will see how I used it on another project next week!

First I ironed heat n bond to all of my fabrics, drew the the turkey shapes on all the pieces, pulled of the back paper lining and laid out the shapes on the turkey body.

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Next, I used my machine to attach all the pieces and hand sewed the turkey's pretty little green eyes on using needle and thread. I also attached all the ribbons on a scarp piece of fabric that was the same size as the head on C's turkey.

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I then sandwiched the front of C's turkey to the pretty ribbon feather piece and sewed all the way around the turkey.

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Finally, (really, the whole process is pretty short.  This is totally a nap craft) I placed the finished pieces on the shirts the kids would be wearing that day.

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To see the super cute end product you will have to come back to see how our first Thanksgiving went.  We are expecting thirty people and tons of great food and memories made!

-melissa

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