/10 on 10/ July 2015

Another great 4th of July at the cabin! The highlight of the weekend was Emma finally fishing on her own (she's been building up to it for the past two summers). She was fearless, persistent, and hilarious. She named each worm, named each fish, and comforted the fish as Jared removed the hook. She probably caught 10 fish all on her own by the time the weekend was over, and was so thrilled to be a "real fishergirl!" :) /1/ Taking this big sister thing to a new level

/2/ Perfectly capable of doing it on his own

/3/ My favorite old door in all the land

/5/ Got a bite!

/6/ Back to wandering

/7/ Time to cool down

/8/ I believe this one was "Slimy Joe"

/9/ Reel 'em in!

/10/ My guys <3

Please head over to Dominique's blog to check out her incredible 10 on 10!

/Letters to My Children/ February 2015

Dear Emma,

I've been so drawn to taking portraits of you lately... You're growing into your personality more every day and I so love capturing all the many sides of you. You're oh so silly, and astoundingly smart, and most of all incredibly sweet and thoughtful. You're also emerging as a bit of an introvert, which isn't surprising since you hail from a looooong line of introverts. We're working on helping you be more social around people you don't know, but daddy and I are so proud of your maturity and independence. Even when you're in a new situation where you don't know the other kids, you happily find your own way.

In school news, you've been making awesome progress with your moveable alphabet, and just this week started writing words! With no help from me, you sounded out and spelled "hat" all by yourself. You were so proud and excited. "Mama! I spelled a real word!!"  It's like it all clicked for you and after that you wanted to write every three letter word you know. Dad, cat, bat... You were on fire and it was truly awesome to watch. Not too shabby for three and a half. (Thanks, Montessori!)

We love you so much, bubba, and are so proud to be your parents. 

Love, 

Mama 

Please head over to my very sweet friend Ally’s blog to read her letter, then continue around the circle until you land back here!

/10 on 10: 2015/ January

I'm thrilled to be back with the latest installment of 10 on 10! This has grown into one of my favorite projects and I'm teaming up with a truly awesome group of photographers on it this year. After you check out my 10, head on over to Christine's blog to see her 10! /1/ peek-a-boo barn

/2/ lines

/3/ hanging at the art wall

/4/ sidle up

/5/ snack

/6/ well maybe if you hadn't dumped the bowl out on your head...

/7/ more please!

/8/ Freeze!

/9/ two can play at this game

/10/ old and new feet

\Letters to My Children\ March

I’m continuing my “Letters” project this year with a new group of my very dearest photography friends. Each month I’ll write a letter to one of my babies.  This month it’s Jonah’s turn…

I can't believe you're already 6 months old! It seems like just yesterday we were bringing you home from the hospital, and now you're rolling over, scooting around to get to your toys, and starting solids. We gave you some avocado to try and after the initial excitement wore off, you were pretty skeptical.

Eventually you got on board and have been doing great ever since. And now that you're finally feeling better (begone chronic bronchiolitis!) you're drinking lots and lots of milk and sleeping better at night. You still wake up a little too early for our liking, but we'll work on that. You're so stinking cute, we're always happy to see your face - even at 5am.

We love you so much, buddy, and can't wait to see what the coming months have in store for you. <3

I encourage you to head over to my lovely friend Gwen’s blog to read her letter to her children.

out with the old...

I did something this weekend I've been wanting to do for a long time... redesign the blog! (If you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click on over to see the new digs.) My goal was to give it a cleaner, softer, slightly more stylish look, and make it easier to navigate. Let me know what you think!

In other exciting news, Made by Bird now (finally) has its own Facebook page! Click here to Like it (please please). If you're friends with me on Facebook, I'm planning to share links on both my personal and Made by Bird feeds for the next week or so, but after that will be exclusively posting on Made by Bird. So if you want to keep getting updates in your feed, please be sure to become a fan. Hopefully this will give my friends who don't give two hoots about sewing or crafting a break from all the link sharing. :-)

on hiatus...

If you're reading this right now, that means I finally had our baby! Wooohooo!! It also means that my self-imposed break from blogging so I can fully focus on mommyhood has started. I'll return in a month or so, and in the meantime keep an eye out for the big nursery reveal post, which I've already written and will publish sometime in the next couple weeks (I've decided that hitting the publish button on my iPhone Wordpress app doesn't really count as blogging.) :-)

Thanks so much for all your support and kind words throughout my pregnancy!! See ya in July!

a belated blogiversary

Oops! I was so caught up with the Etsy shop launch that I totally missed the 1 year anniversary of my blog! I can't believe how much has happened since I started blogging... here's a little recap by the numbers:

• 55 blog posts
• 102 comments (thank you!)
• 47 completed sewing projects
  • 31 bags (19 lunch totes, 11 roll-up shopping slings, 1 Simple Tote)
  • 4 applique onesies (here and here)
  • 3 PJ pants (here and here)
  • 3 burp cloths
  • 2 pairs of baby booties
  • 1 nursing cover
  • 1 sink skirt
  • 1 mapron
  • 1 Mr. Cabin 2010 sash (for Jared's Halloween costume... you'll have to take my word for its awesomeness)
• 2 Yudu projects (here and here)
• 12 recipe posts (much more to come in year 2)
• 1900 dollars saved by DIYing our dining room
• 9 amazing days in Maui for our first wedding anniversary
• 365 days of feeling insanely grateful to have a husband that unconditionally supports my passion for sewing, crafting, and DIY

A big thank you to everyone who's read, commented, and supported this blog. It really means so much to me. Here's to loads more projects and recipes in year 2! :)