puzzle-ing

It's tradition! We start our puzzle on Thanksgiving, and finish it before Christmas...
We're off to a slow start this year, but please don't worry, we only started a week late. It's sure to be done before Christmas! :)













This year's puzzle has a nifty little twist to it. You work around the outside border, which is filled with tons of interesting facts about CHOCOLATE. Then, you get to the good stuff... a picture of piles of chocolate... sure to prepare me for a feast! :)

step one

the first step in preparing the way.....















the clean up. :)

picture compliments of my 9 year old...
the mom is sweeping. one boy is dusting the shelf. the girl is mopping, the little boy slipped on the suds, and the baby is playing in the bubbles... fun times!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Was YOUR centerpiece as cool as ours?















We hope your Thanksgiving was as wonderful as ours.... even if you didn't have a cool stuffed chicken on the table.
And to show you just how much I love all of my fans and how much fun I want you to have a super good time this weekend, I'm going to offer 20% off of everything in stock in my store ALL WEEKEND. Just use the coupon code BFCM2011 at checkout! Starting.... NOW. I will close the coupon on Tuesday, November 29... If you've had your eye on something, you'd better head over there now. :) and....
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

call me crazy...

but i just can't resist bright colors.

so, what did i do today? i colored some rice. super easy. the littles helped me. we put one cup of rice in a ziploc bag, dumped about one tablespoon of rubbing alcohol in and about a tablespoon of food coloring. zipped them up, and squished them around. then poured brilliant colored rice into a pan to dry.

then comes the crazy part...



















i gave it to the kids. with glue.



















see! 'mommy gave me my own bottle of glue!' i'm almost afraid of what's going to happen at this point. this could be a disaster. #whatwasithinking???




















but, we're crafty people. we can't let a two year old with a glue bottle and thousands of little colored specks scare us away... no! we need to create!




















and THIS is the reason we let them have glue when they're two!

custom orders

see! i'm not slacking! just a few customs that are ready to be sent out! :)

you're right - i DO need to blog more...

it snowed a few inches last night. not a whole bunch, but enough to make the roads slick enough to worry about whether or not hubby made it to work. he didn't call, of course. as i suspected, it was only because he made it just in time to clock in... i wasn't super worried. really. there's also enough snow out there for the kids to just go bananas... an early morning sledding run was definitely in order. and, last but not least, enough snow for me to get the urge to make some sort of comfort food other than hot cocoa... we did that the other day. so, here you have it. brownies. brownies with cream cheese. brownies with cream cheese and chocolate chips. brownies with cream cheese, chocolate chips, and walnuts to satisfy the nuts in this house (i'm not one of them, but i'll tolerate them).
terry said, prove it. prove that you made brownies.... so here it is.... PROOF. (i hope they make her hungry enough to travel the 3000 miles across the country and share one with me).















eggs...















beaten...














with plenty of sugar...














add cocoa and melted butter...















cream cheese...














and sugar and an egg and chocolate chips...














layered...














topped with walnuts!














while they're baking, contemplate this. my grandparents :)

wordless wednesday

or 'why i wait until the kids are in bed to do my sewing'....

wordless wednesday

brought to you from the crayon of my six year old.

wordless wednesday

boy, i must not be very talkative lately... all i ever post is wordless wednesdays.
















two teeth less

please ignore the pizza face.

wordless wednesday

tie dye fun!

cranberry

lime green

aqua

green apple

fire

aqua

all new 100% wool soaker wraps!
click on the picture, and it *should* take you to the listing... i *am* talking on the phone to terry and trying to type and make links, which *could* be a disastrous situation...

the stand off

tonight mr. mellon asked me if i liked root beer floats, and then proceeded to sit on the couch??? WHAT!? you can't ask me something like that and then just sit down. i gave him the look, and he said, 'well, somebody's gotta do the suggesting, and i did. now it's your turn.'
ummm... no.
so i decided to stand my ground and wait. and wait. and wait. the first claim was that he was waiting until the kids went to bed.... uh huh.. sure. what happened after the kids went to bed? you guessed it... i waited. and waited. finally, i went to the storage room and brought out the root beer. then i suggested... now it was his turn.....

this is what i waited that long for????





quite amusing to watch, very tasty, AND he even cleaned up the mess.... mostly. :D

wordless wednesday

grandma and grandpa left today...

this poor little guy thought he was going too.

wordless wednesday

we specialize in baby drawers.

Wordless Wednesday

shhh.... mama's resting

wordless wednesday

snip snip cut cut

i still have quite a few pieces of fabric to cut up, but i'd say this is a pretty good start...


two stacks of velour... one for fitteds, one for AIO's



piles of awesome prints for outer cuteness

a huge stack of inners

and, of course, fluff for the liners :)

wordless wednesday

the great BIRTHDAY BASH!!!

Octavius is ONE today! Happy birthday, Baby 'O'!

in honor of baby o's 12 month milestone, we're going to have a little fun. everything in my shop is 12% off!!! don't forget the coupon code BIRTHDAYBASH ~AND for every diaper sold, i will make baby o a diaper. oh, wouldn't baby o LOVE to open a huge pile of NEW diapers??? :) maybe a dozen for a dozen months? ;)

gift set

my mom is awesome... really. she is one of the two reasons bebeMellons exist. the other reason is my sister, terry. anyway, mom has an etsy shop... deusprovidebit. she makes hats. really really cool baby hats. most of you probably already know that, though, because of our recent hat giveaway. but just in case you haven't see her shop, i'm posting the link here again.... CLICKY because you MUST check out her shop. you really really must.
so, mom has been planning, and here's a sneak peek at our first gift set.



i TOLD you she is AWESOME!

hats will be available in newborn, 0-3 months, 3-6 months, 6-12 months or 12+ months...

i mean, even if you don't use cloth diapers, you should pretend you do to get a photo shoot in a set like that! wow! :)