Her favorite color is blue, far and away, but I couldn’t resist sneaking a few pink ruffles in there too.

She was afraid the wind would blow her hat off.  She was so concerned about it she clutched her hat most of the morning.  Clutched it so hard the stitching is coming loose.  She just didn’t want to lose it.  Silly girl.

Looking at these tulip gardens makes me want to spend a small fortune on bulbs and have thousands of tulips in bloom at once.  You know, in that yard I don’t have.

There was a group of gardeners trimming flowers and one of them snipped a flower for her.  Actually, I kind of wanted to ask them if I could take home all the one’s they were clipping off, their buckets were full of such pretty colors of petals.

Her dress is handmade, from a thrifted sheet, pink ruffled petticoat was from a costume warehouse sale last year. I had to change the ribbon on the hat from cheapie plastic looking pink to classic stripes, and I think her shoes and ruffle socks are from Target, they were gifts.  I’m so glad I took these yesterday.  I haven’t been using my camera much lately, and looking at these pictures was a good reminder to me why it is important to pull it out everyday.  I have never regretted taking pictures.  But often wish I’d taken them when I didn’t think it was worth pulling out the big camera.  Lesson learned, well, learning.  Slowly, I’m learning to just bring my camera All. The. Time.

Felt Lipstick.  Doesn’t get cuter than that.  She has been carrying it around and trying it out since I finished the last stitch.

Yep, it even has a cutie little removable lid.  It kills me.  The whole thing is only 3″ tall.  Which is a lot of very tiny little stitches.  Particularly considering it has 17 different pieces…

But even with 17 teensy beensy pieces, it only took me a little over and hour to make.  My kind of project.

And she’s such a girly girl it’s her kind of project too.  Win win all around.  Jeanette Lim, the author and designer of the book also has an etsy shop full of beautiful and amazing felt patterns.  I want every single thing in her shop.  Seriously.

Tuesday, after what seemed like months of waiting we finally got real snow at our house.  And it didn’t even all melt away before we got out there to play in it.  It’s of course long gone now, but it was here.  Tuesday, it was here.  It started snowing on our way home from preschool and it didn’t let up for a few hours.  We had those big fluffy flakes that stick on your eyelashes and everything.  It made me so happy.  And as soon as it stopped we got all dressed up in snow garb to go play.  And due to playing in the snow I completely forgot about her dance class Tuesday afternoon.  #MomFail.

But this might be her only chance to play in snow this year, which is completely depressing, so I figure it’s all worth it.  It was an afternoon well spent.

Potty Break.  She started running for the front door.  Novice snow mom here forgot to make her go before we got all dressed up in snow gear.  So we took it all off at the front door, she made a beeline for the bathroom and then we put it all back on.  And my biggest fear was that the snow would melt before we got back out there.  Seriously, I’m moronic sometimes.

But we got to make a teensy snowman, snow angels, and she threw plenty of snowballs.  I think we stayed outside for two hours.  And by the time she was done it was getting dark, and I could hear the dripping of the snow melting off of cars and houses and I was so thankful for the one afternoon of good fun in the white stuff.  Now, if only we can get a few more days like this before spring really comes that would be great.

It did snow a bit today, and hailed even.  Which is closer to rain than snow (in my opinion).  But it’s long gone now and my world is back to that awful shade of dead winter gray/brown/yellowish blah.

PS- I thrifted her coat last year for I think $5.  Also, I have had some major luck in the thrifting department lately.  I’ll share soon.

As soon as we laid out our big blanket on the sand Creamie started taking off clothes to get in the water.  Her little skirt was off in no time flat and it was all I could do to keep her underwear on her.  I was glad I found these little boy shorts for her a few days before we left.  I didn’t much mind her walking around in these undiepants.

I found a small bucket of beach toys for $5 before we left and it was one of my best buys.  She was in heaven.  I think she played here in the sand for 3 straight hours.  I took more than 300 pictures, but I’ll spare you the full photo journal.

This was the first of many picnics on this trip.  I can’t count the number of sandwiches I ate.  But I was really glad we took our big picnic blanket.  I used it almost everyday.  It was perfect.  (This is the quilt I made for Scott last year from his dad’s clothes, that post here.)

She was burying her dad’s feet.  And doing a wonderful job of it.  Also, I think I have about 50 pictures of her from this trip with her toungue out.  Beaching is serious concentrating business!

After she fell in the water a few times she got cold and we put her swimming suit on her.  And then she got cold again and we traded a swimming suit for jeans and a fleece jacket.  Going to the beach requires a LOT of stuff.  Especially for us.  At the end of the pier on Seal Beach is a really great restaurant called Ruby’s Diner.  It’s another California favorite.

I love this girl.  Also, I finally found a pair of sunglasses that was under $20 that doesn’t hurt my head when I wear them for more than 10 minutes.  These aren’t them.  I am not letting my new one’s out of my sight ever.  They were too hard to come by!

Most of our time in California it was pretty cold.  Her little fleece jacket got a LOT of use this trip.  So I was glad we went to the beach when we did, it was such perfect weather.  For February.  She has been asking me all morning if she can go to the beach after lunch today.  She sure loved it.

Also, I should point out that I don’t get in the water.  I do the beach in pants and a jacket and stay on the dry sand.  I did walk down to the water to talk to those two while they were playing, but I try to keep my toes out of the surf.  I am a total beach woosie.  But these two?  They’d get in the water if it was 45 degrees.  And they have.  Crazies.

A few months ago I found this pink felt cowgirl hat at a second hand kids store.  It was on their after Halloween costume clearance and I snagged it for about $1.50.  And it’s real felt.  Like, the kind I could take to whatever place you take them and they could reshape or dye or whatever.  Not that I am interested in dying it.  Creamie might be, her favorite color for the past few months has been blue.

Not too long after that I saw a Western store that was going out of business and stopped in to check out their sale.  And I found boots.  Little girl leather boots.  Real honest to goodness cowboy boots, and they were 70% off.  And it was all I could do to not buy four or five pairs.  I picked these ones with a few sizes to grow so she can wear them for a while.  They are really big on her now, but I couldn’t handle her growing out of them anytime soon.  I gave them to her for Christmas and she wears them all the time.  It’s hilarious.

In this crazy unseasonably warm winter weather we stopped by a historic cabin in my little town to take some pictures.  And I am so glad I did.  I didn’t get to take pictures of her for her birthday (yet).  But these will be a really good reminder of what she looked like right now.

Her hat, sweater, denim skirt and tights are all thrifted, as is her vintage embroidered top.  This is one of my very favorite of her outfits, even before she had boots and hat.  I’ll be sad when she has grown out of all these pieces.  This sweater is already in the too small box, she’s been wearing it for two years now, haha!

Boots, stripey tights, ponytails and  a hat.  I love this girl.  Also, I really need to remember to take pictures of her wearing more of my favorite clothes.  She doesn’t care, but I sure do love looking at them.  I think I am going to do one post in the next few days with my favorite pictures from the past, oh you know, like two months since I fell off the blogging wagon and then I’ll be all caught up.  And I’m already working on a few Valentine projects (February is my favorite month!) and a few secrets.  Be back soon!

But today my little girl turned three.  And this is what we had for lunch.  We had a real party last weekend for her with our family, the morning after my sisters wedding.  I had 27 people in my house.  My very small house.  But it was wonderful. And now I’m back to mostly normal, I slept a full 10 hours last night and I hope that in the next few days our computer will be recoverd enough so I can get to all my photos and my camera software and photoshop and blah blah blah.  I’ll be back soon.  I have a lot of things to share!

I didn’t know I was going outside to keep her from falling into the engine.  But I love this picture!

There she was, face in the engine right next to her dad and fingers getting greasier and blacker by the minute.  And she was as happy as could be.  The headlight box took a while to get out (one of the clips was broken and it took a while to wiggle it out) and she was completely entertained “helping” for almost an hour.  And it wasn’t even the kind of helping that isn’t really helping, but is mostly just getting in the way.  She stayed out of Scotts way for the most part.  She just wanted to be right by him.  It was so sweet.

Daddys toolbox was her favorite.  I think she pulled out every single tool and used it to fix something in the car.  Moneky wrench, screwdriver, jammer, chisel…. they all went under the hood for a few minutes before she’d put them in a little stack on the sidewalk next to his box.  When his box was empty she declared the car fixed and was done playing.

She was so completely hilarious banging away under the hood with whichever tool she had in her hand at the moment.  And I was also really glad she didn’t drop anything in there.

We did find a big old screwdriver in there, it was almost 18 inches long.  Who knows  how long it’s been inside the engine.  It wasn’t one of our tools, so it has been in there for at least four years, maybe more.  This car has been in the shop over and over for minor repairs and I was shocked no one found it before now.

It wouldn’t be a car repair without getting under the car to check things out.  And she was more than happy to help out.  It was a great afternoon, and I am so glad I had my camera handy to snap a couple hundred pictures of the whole thing (you’re lucky I only posted six…)

Last night I made some pumpkin spice frozen yogurt.  The recipe still needs a little tweaking but oh my goodness it is delicious.  I’m off to finish off the last of the batch before I settle into a little sewing.

I made her apron, bloomers and hat and then on Monday afternoon decided she needed a matching candy sack too.  I finished up her bag about 4:00 and then hurried to take pictures before we went trick or treating.  Unfortunately I forgot to put the little polka dots on her face until I was nearly finished.  Bummer.

I tried painting a pair of white tights with green stripes and it was a total failure.  I ordered these stripey tights on Thursday and was beyond ecstatic when they arrived on Monday afternoon.  Yay for $6 expedited shipping! (Of course, that made her tights about $12, more than everything else combined!)

I had to fix her hat one more time before we went trick or treating.  I made this hat about 4 times before I got it to look and fit right.  And after we were done taking pictures I pinned an elastic headband to the inside which kept it on much better.  I sewed one of my bath loofah’s to the inside to keep it all puffy.  And if I hadn’t had to make it four times I would have had time to make a little strawberry pincushion for the very top.

Last year on Halloween it was rainy and cold and just plain awful weather.  This year it was 70 degrees and perfect.  Creamie loved trick or treating, and her bag got so heavy she wouldn’t carry it anymore.   But the only thing she wanted to eat was one dumdum sucker.  Then she told me she’d had enough and she would save the rest for tomorrow.  I don’t know where she comes from sometimes.

I can’t wait to figure out what she is going to be next year!  And maybe I’ll actually make myself a costume for next year too.  I better start in January, or it might not happen. Ha!

I’ll share the recipe this week, but these three were just too cute not to show you.  Also, they tasted delicious.  And I ate all three in under a minute and didn’t feel bad about it one teensy bit.  Sugar free!  Nearly carb free!  That is practically health food.  And now that I know how well this mini pie tin works I can see myself making a whole lot of mini pies this month.  Man, I love pie.

Also, Creamie’s Halloween costume turned out to be, like, the cutest thing in the world.  My own Mini Strawberry Shortcake!  I’ll share some more pictures of it tomorrow, but wanted to give you a little peek.  Eeeek! She was so happy, and spent the whole evening telling people her name was Merry Berry Shortcake. I love her.

She is wearing a thrifted vintage sweater, white cardigan from aWalmart,  thrifted skinny jeans and her favorite boots I found a few weeks ago for $3 at a thrift store.  She wears those things almost everyday!

If you ask her what her favorite part about the cabin was it was making a fire and eating dinner in front of it.  When we move a wood fireplace is high up on the list of things we don’t think we can live without.

Last night we picked a few boxes of apples from my mom’s neighbors tree.  I think most of the rest of the week will be consumed with making applesauce and apple pie filling to can.  With my little helper at my side it is sure to take 100 times longer than necessary and be a lot messier than usual.  And a lot more fun.  See you soon.  And one day maybe we’ll remember to bring a tripod so we can get at least one picture with all of us together.  But whatever, she’s the cutest one in the family anyway.