I think I mentioned awhile ago that I was going to try my hand at embroidery. Well, while I was in Germany I had the time to work on it a little, and I made this.

Just to see what I could do with tracing shapes, and practicing a couple different kinds of stitches. I wanted to learn more about it, especially learn how to do different embroidery stitches, and when I returned from my trip, this was waiting for me in the mail from Mom!

Be still my heart. Everything I’ve always wanted to know about embroidery, and it’s a book from my grandmother (mom’s mom)! Which makes it even better! Embroidery, both looking at it and doing it myself, reminds me of Grandma Simmons. So I am happy to be learning from her book.

Ivy went to a little birthday party for a friend last weekend, and I’ve been meaning to post about the gift we took. Ivy helped make it, which made it even more fun. I got the idea from here.

A blank book, covered in fancy paper, and a little miniature legal pad, also covered in fancy paper. The girls each chose some ribbon to give, and I let them choose their own ribbon designs from the bin at Micheal’s, which was interesting. We also found some sticker paper doll books (one Cinderella, one Princess), and tied some colored pencils together. You can’t see the little purple envelope we put inside the box lid, into which we stuffed 2 homemade birthday cards from the girls, and some fun stickers for the birthday girl.

Excuse the dark and fuzzy atmosphere in these pictures. I seem to be a bit rusty lately in my photography skills. Sigh.

In other news, we finally have some furniture to complete our bedroom! Making our bedroom nice and and a pleasant place to be has been kind of a vision of Scott’s (and mine) for awhile. We were going to invest in some furniture this spring to match a piece we already have (from here) but, lo and behold, I just happened to check on craigslist and someone had some matching pieces for sale! We never thought this would happen. So after much arranging, emails, wondering if we were going to get it at all, and work to get it out of the woman’s house (many thanks to Paul who helped Scott. I held doors open. Women’s work.), we brought it home.

Here is a sweet picture of Charlotte and Asher. Charlotte loves Asher. She loves him. Much more like a playmate than a little mommy to him, and he just adores her. They often sit together when something is playing on the tv.

Scott had the rare opportunity to get a little movie of them, watching a movie together. Enjoy!