Shopping in Shannon's Closet: the fall edition

In yet another chapter of Shopping in Shannon's Closet (where my sister-in-law dresses me with all of her amazing hand-me-downs), I wanted to share with you some of the awesome fall things I scored from her latest stash!

If you haven't heard about my sister-in-law, she's nothing short of awesome. She's the sister I never had who, besides being extremely talented and brilliant, has an awesome taste in fashion (and a love of shopping). Luckily for me, she has taken pity on her poor sister-in-law's sense of fashion (and empty wallet) and does better than let me wear her clothes - she gives them to me when she gets tired of them! I love that girl. And so does my budget.

When my in-laws visited last, my mother-in-law brought another big bag of Shannon's stuff for me. A lot of it is cooler-weather stuff, so I've been waiting to share some of it with you!

Outfit #1: Lumberjackie

Shirt: Shannon's
Leggings: Mine, Target
Shoes: Mine, Target
Belt: Mine, Forever 21

OK, so most of this outfit was actually mine for once, but it definitely has some Shannon influence in it with the leggings. I mentioned before how much I love leggings, but it took a lot to get me to actually wear them in the first place. I think I was having flashbacks to elementary school stirrup pants. Now, I don't know what I'd do without leggings.

I love this flannel shirt because 1: There's just something so wonderfully fall-ish about flannel 2. Blue is my favorite color and 3: The sleeves have pickups in them so I can wear the sleeves long or short depending on how cool the weather is that day.

Outfit #2: Goody Two Boots

Dress: Shannon's
Necklace: Shannon's
Boots: Mine, Gap

So I'm sure you're loving my corny outfit names, right? And also the very obvious fact that I only have 2 poses? Yeah, modeling is not one of my fortes.

This is an outfit I wore to church recently. I wanted to wear a dress, but it was a little chilly outside so I decided to wear one of my favorite pairs of boots with it. Not sure if this particular pair of boots worked as well as they could have with the dress, but I'm kind of lacking in the boot department since I have arches that are like, 3 feet tall, and therefore can't wear any heels higher than a couple of inches. My husband says I walk like a velociraptor when I wear heels. He even does an awesome impression of me walking like a raptor. Which I will not repeat for you. Ever.

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And now some outtakes for you. Because when my husband gets the camera, he's good for about 3 minutes. Then has the attention span of a 6-year-old and makes me laugh so I can't take a normal picture.

Linking up to WIWW:

My end-of-season steals

Nothing else gets me like having to pay $30 for teeny baby jeans that they'll grow out of in a month. I mean, babies are like 1/6 the size of a normal person, so lets take that price and divide it by 6. I'd happily pay $5 for baby jeans. Sadly, I don't think retailers will ever agree with me. And that's why I love end-of-season sales so much.

If you've been reading for awhile, you know that I hate paying full-price for stuff, especially clothing, which is probably why I love making clothes for my kids so much. When I go shopping, I usually walk in and make a bee line for the clearance rack. When it comes to clothes for myself, I have an awesome sister-in-law who dresses me, so she's just helping to enable my cheapness even more. And I love her for that. And don't even get me started on my husband. The man would be happy to own a pair of cargo shorts and 2 baseball tees, one in black and one in gray.

So back to baby clothes. At the end of each summer and winter, the hubs and I make a trip to some stores and stock up ahead of time for the coming seasons, which helps us get a lot of cute clothes for the kids at prices we would never be able to get in season. We happened to be in Babies R Us recently to find a new car seat for Connor, and they had an amazing clearance event that I couldn't pass up. Everything was discounted already with an additional discount on top of it PLUS a buy one get one free deal.

It was on.

Here are some of the cute things we scored for next year:

A bunch of cute matching graphic tees and comfy shorts,

(I just love the blue striped shirt for some reason, the color is so pretty! ...I mean manly.)

And of course, I had to get a pair of swim trunks for Connor for next summer. He's going to look like such a big kid :(

For Haley, I found this adorable ruffle skirt,

Jean shorts for $3!

And assorted other pants and shirts. But my favorite had to be these:

Adorable rainbow sneakers! Love love love. They match everything, so that's a major plus :)

Is anyone else an end-of-season shopaholic like me?

Guess who's mobile?

Yup, this little guy here is finally crawling.

It took him about 9 1/2 months, but Connor is officially crawling EVERYwhere. He's been rocking back and forth for awhile now, but he finally got enough coordination to go for it. And I couldn't be happier. Most of the time, he sits and plays well but then gets bored and cries for us to carry him somewhere new. Now, he just goes places himself.

He's still a little tipsy, but that makes him even more adorable. Watching him crawl in these early stages is hilarious. He looks like a little bulldog when he's crawling at you with a concentrated look and short, quick steps.

Life is just more interesting when you can go places yourself.

And now that means Connor finds wires to chew on. And random pieces of stuff on the floor end up in his mouth. And books get torn up. I'm going to have to hide everything. Again.

But I can't be mad at this face, can I?

Preparing for Baby

Not me, thank you very much. Not yet anyway, I'm having enough fun juggling two right now to think about a third just yet!

Has anyone else noticed that everyone seems to be pregnant or having babies lately? Dana over at MADE just announced that she's pregnant with another little girl on Tuesday - so excited about all the adorable baby projects that are sure to follow! And of course Katy over at No Big Dill just had her 6th child - a little boy! I can't wait to see all the fun boy stuff. I imagine that making boy things after having 5 little girls to sew for must be exciting and intimidating. Then there's Rubyellen over at Cakies who just had her 4th little girl. There's something in the water...and I'm not ready to drink that Kool Aid quite so soon after the last one.

But, if you are pregnant, or you have a friend that is, The Dating Divas have some great ideas on how to prepare for baby. They included some great ideas for essentials like preparing your husband, getting maternity pictures taken, getting your other little ones ready for the new baby, and of course making time for yourself - something that we ladies forget to do!

And you might even see my Hospital Survival Kit for New Mothers over there as part of the roundup :)

Go check out all the fantastic ideas to prepare for a new little one over at The Dating Divas. And in just a few weeks, I'll be blog swapping with them - so excited!

PS - have you taken a guess at what I've been up to lately to win a mystery prize? If you're a follower on Facebook, I've been giving little hints along the way :)

I've been busy

 *This giveaway is now closed*

Sorry I haven't posted a project yet this week, my craft room has been looking more and more like an assembly line lately. I've been cutting so much, I have a blister on one of my fingers from where the scissors rubbed it raw.

I've been doing LOTS of tracing, cutting, ironing, and sewing.

Just when I think I'm done, there's still more to do.

Can you guess what I'm up to?


There might be something in it for the first person who guesses right... :)

My new flash!

So this came in the mail recently....

My brand spankin new Canon Speedlite 430EX II!

I have been so bummed about some of the pictures I've been taking lately. I so wish I had the ability to stay at home with my babies and craft during the day like many of you other lucky ladies out there. If so, I would be able to craft during the day and take pictures then when the lighting is perfect. Right now, I need to work to help bring home the bacon, so the majority of my crafting is done at night - which makes for over exposed, often yellow pictures.

It's really a huge let down when I work so hard on projects and then staging them just so, and then they turn out yellow due to poor lighting. But not anymore now that I have this baby! My husband spoils me. I won't even list the many things we've purchased for me this year. Let's just say I won't be getting any Christmas, birthday, or anniversary gifts for the next few years. And I'm totally cool with that.

I still need to read the instruction book to really get the hang of the new flash, but I'm already loving it in auto mode. I played around with the flash some to see how big of a difference it really made with my pictures (please ignore the messy craft room!)

1. Without flash

2. With standard flash that came with my Canon Rebel

3. Speedlite pointed directly at me

3. With retractable wide panel down

4. Speedlite at a 75 degree angle

I can already see a HUGE difference with my Speedlite. It lightens up the shadows and makes all my pictures look much more natural. Plus, since the flash is adjustable, I can use it to bounce light off the ceiling and walls for better pictures. I'm SO excited to start using it with all my projects in the evening. No more over exposed pictures that I spend forever editing. I'm one happy girl!

End of summer

The weather has finally dipped below the 90's here, and I couldn't be happier. Neither could a certain little girl who has been patiently waiting to swim in her kiddie pool ALL STINKIN' SUMMER.

Call me crazy, but I have no desire to set foot outside when it feels like my skin is melting off. Maybe that's just me though. I'm a big fan of keeping my skin thanks.

We've brought out the kiddie pool a whopping 2 times this year. TWO. Isn't summer supposed to be all about being outside and enjoying the summer sun? Not when the temperature is in the nineties and low hundreds. And let me tell you, it's been that way for a couple months in a row. There's no point to summer if you can't even go outside and enjoy it. Even the vegetables in my garden lost their will to live in the sweltering Tennessee heat.

Even more reason for me to look forward to fall. I just love the cool, crisp air, the way the leaves change, and of course it doesn't hurt that October means Halloween candy. That's one of the perks to having small children; they're too young to know that "checking the Halloween candy for safety reasons" is synonymous with "Mom and Dad get all the chocolate."


But for now, we're enjoying the last days of summer as the heat slowly dies down and nights become more pleasant. There are lots of bare feet and cups of lemonade at the McCaffrey house. But I'll gladly trade my cup of lemonade for a piece of pumpkin pie. Or some Halloween candy. I'm not picky :)

Homemade pasta

Sorry I've been a little MIA lately. I've been going through some changes at work with a new position and all the challenges that learning a new job entails (mini freak out!) It's been good but stressful. I'm being stretched and learning a lot of new things, so when I come home I want nothing more than to flop down on the couch and eat a creamsicle. Which is exactly what I have been doing for the last few nights.

However, since it's probably not the healthiest thing to eat creamsicles every night for dinner, I did manage to drag myself off the couch long enough to try making my own pasta one night. And let me tell you, it's WAY easier than I thought it'd be!

I thought it would be some kind of long, complicated process that involved special tools and ingredients, but when I opened my favorite Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (which is my go-to cooking bible) to find an idea for dinner one night, I saw a recipe for homemade noodles. And with a whole 3 ingredients total, I felt like it would be pretty hard for me to completely screw this one up, so I gave it a go.

Do you like my homemade drying rack? That's totally a clothes hanger dangling above my sink. I may have taken one giant step into ghettoville with this method, but you can't argue with results. Sometimes it's the simplest method works the best. Who needs expensive equipment when you have a plastic hanger that works just as well, right?

I just combined all the ingredients, rolled out the dough, cut it into strips, then let it dry on my ghetto pasta rack overnight. In the morning, I woke to find some lovely dried pasta, minus a few jumpers that broke off and fell into the sink.

I prepared them simply by sauteing some crushed garlic and tomatoes in olive oil, then tossing it with basil, oregano, and parmesan cheese. So tasty! My only problem was that I didn't cut the noodles thin enough so they didn't cook as evenly as I liked.

Oh well, that's what you get when you use a rolling pin and clothes hanger instead of a pasta machine, right?




I also made a second batch of noodles that I chose not to dry, and instead modified THIS recipe for chicken noodle soup from Allrecipes.com and substituted my homemade noodles in place of the egg noodles. It was nothing short of amazing. One of those meals perfect for a cold winter night or a rainy day, you know?

Too bad it's in the 90's here still...which didn't stop me from making a giant pot of soup anyway :) I see many more batches of homemade noodles in my future!

A feature and a reminder

Just popping in to say how excited I was to get an email from Summer over at Sumo's Sweet Stuff that she would be featuring my Tunic Dress in her Showcase Saturday today! I just love her blog, it really made my day to hear that she was featuring me.

And of course it made all the effort I put into trying to get Haley to pose for pictures worth it. That kid cannot be bought with anything. Chocolate, toys, nothing will make her stand still and smile for pictures. Out of the 25+ pictures I took, most of them were like this:

I guess 2-year-olds can't appreciate the time it takes for us mama's to sew a dress for them ;)

On another note, just a reminder that my Sail Away Dress Sew-Along begins Monday morning! Hope you'll join me.

Have a great weekend!

I'm a vegetable murderer

Aren't these lovely squash? The only problem is that they're not squash, they're cucumbers from my garden.

They're HUGE and lacking that certain greenness that cucumbers are supposed to have. At the beginning of spring, I planted 2 cucumber plants, 3 tomato plants, 2 strawberry plants, 5 lettuce plants, and a handful of red onions. Fastforward many, many hot Tennessee days later, and all of the plants except for the tomato and cucumber plants have died. Actually, one strawberry plant is hanging on for dear life and has produced 5 strawberries the size of dimes - does that count?

I had some hope for my lettuce plants, but when we went on vacation to Pittsburgh for a week in June, this is what I came home to:

My heads of lettuce had bolted. I had never heard that term before, but from Googling "my lettuce plant looks like a mutant," I discovered that "bolting" basically means my lettuce plants thought they were going to die so they decided to flower, which makes them grow upward and flower. Unfortunately this means the leaves become bitter and inedible. Which meant I got to add to my compost pile.

I had some hope for my cucumbers, so when they were growing in humongous proportions, I looked past the fact that they were yellow instead of the typical green cucumber-y color. After realizing that they had yet to green up, I picked one and cut it open to see how it tasted.

Yuck-o.

It was bitter and had this gross white inner rind. After visiting my friend Google again, I found out that cucumbers weren't supposed to get this big (oops) and that the yellow color probably meant that they had some crazy plant virus or that the weather was too hot. Sigh.

So now I have a big pile of these cucumbers the size of my calf that taste like a shoe. Anybody want one?

Virginia wrap-up

We're back from our trip to Virginia, and oh how good it is to be out of the car and with access to food that doesn't come in combo form. The kids spent lots of quality time with my parents, and Pat and I took advantage of the free childcare and enjoyed a much-needed date night out or two while we were at it :)

Our 4th of July morning was spent in Colonial Williamsburg, which is an absolutely gorgeous area. I think one of the things I miss most about Virginia is the scenery. Memphis is a concrete jungle, but Williamsburg is covered with trees and history just about everywhere. You can't even walk into the Food Lion without seeing someone dressed in colonial garb.

The colonial houses lining Duke of Gloucester Street were gorgeous as always. Sometimes I forget people actually live in the historic area among the costumed actors.

(PS, I want a stream running through my backyard!)

We also got to see the Fife and Drum Corps perform while we were there. They shot off cannons to recognize each individual state, then marched down the main street. I just kept thinking about how I was glad not to be wearing all the heavy clothes they were wearing in the 90 degree heat.

I lived in Colonial Williamsburg for over 8 years, so while it was all fun to watch, it was stuff I'm used to seeing. At the beginning, it was cool to see all the costumed actors walking around acting like people from the 1700's. Now, I just think about how glad I am not to have to wear all the clothes they were sporting in the 90 degree weather. And it's always fun to watch the tourists. They followed the poor fife and drummers wherever they went.

The night of the 4th, it rained so no fireworks for us. It worked out though because the show was going to be way after Connor and Haley's bedtime, and I knew they would be little zombie children if we took them with us, and lots of loud fireworks going off probably wasn't going to help either.

We pretty much spent the entire weekend eating our way through Williamsburg (which we tend to do ANYtime we visit family) and the extra couple pounds I found were totally worth the delicious food. Oh, and Haley came up with new names for my parents. They originally wanted to be called "Nana" and "Pap," which Haley decided to change to "Nina" and "Map" this past weekend for some reason. 

We tried to teach my dad to sing the "I'm the Map" song from Dora the Explorer, but he wasn't going for it. We'll keep working on that one though, I mean, the man could have his own theme song!

Haley and "Map"

How was your 4th?