Sweet dress...or shirt!

Here is my latest sewing project!

It was intended to be a dress for Mary Kate:

But it works as a shirt for Hannah too:

I really loved making this, and I got to learn a few new sewing skills in the process! I love the way it fits both girls - and they both seem so comfy in it! Because of the elastic and style of this dress/shirt, I think they'll be able to wear it for years before it gets too small!

Sew Fun!

I've been wanting to learn to sew for a while now. Thanks to my wonderful parents and in-laws, I got a sewing machine for Christmas and my wish is coming true! Below are some pics of my first creation! Hannah picked out the fabric, and I had so much fun making it! I love that it is reversible and can be worn all year long - by itself when it's warm and over a shirt when it's cold!

FRONT

BACK

REVERSIBLE

Prune Beard

Here is Mary Kate with her awesome prune beard. Oh, how I love this baby! And since I've been horrible about doing any blog updates about her, here ya go:

Mary Kate is 9 months old! She's such a sweet, happy little baby. At her 9 month appointment it was confirmed that she is teeny tiny! She weighed 15 lbs....her little dot isn't even on the growth chart! But, she's as healthy as can be and growing at a steady pace. She's been a crawling girl for a while now, and she loves it! I love it too! It's so fun to watch her explore the world. She loves to clap and if you are super special, she will wave to you :o) She calls me by name now, "mama". She also says "ba" (ball). In the picture above, you can see that she has 2 cute little bottom teeth. She LOVES dogs and gets very excited when she sees them. She also looooves baby dolls. She likes to chase Hannah around the living room. If she's fussy and I ask her, "Do you want to take a bath?" she instantly grins from ear to ear, looks towards the bathroom, and starts kicking her little legs excitedly. Needless to say, I don't get such a happy response when it's time to get out of the bath :o) She loves it when her Daddy sings to her. She especially likes the Mario Bros theme song...it mesmerizes her! We love our little Mary Kate!!!

Shaker Dance

Here's how we like to spend a Saturday afternoon at the Liechty house....

Family Fun at the Pool

exciting news, and a little somethin' to make you laugh

Two very exciting things have happened!

First of all, Mary Kate took her first crawling "steps" today! She has been on the verge for a while, but today she reaaally wanted one of Hannah's toys and decided that it was worth about 3 crawling "steps" to get it. Unfortunately, when I tried to get her to do it again, she did not approve of me putting the toy she wanted so far out of her reach :o)

Secondly, after I put Mary Kate in her crib for her afternoon nap, she decided that she'd rather play than sleep. Eventually she got bored and started fussing. I had every intention of letting her fuss a little until she fell asleep on her own, until I heard this: "ma-ma! ma-ma! ma-ma!" This was her first time to say mama - how could I not rush in there and tell her what a good baby she is?! So I did, and I rocked my sweet baby to sleep with the biggest smile on my face :o)

Whew! What an exciting day!

And now for something funny....

Hannah has a really great memory and has memorized many of her favorite books so she can "read" them word for word. At the end of one of her Berenstain Bears books, it says: "As the sky grew darker, they looked up and saw a tiny point of light in the western sky...."

Here is how Hannah reads it to Mary Kate: "As the sky grew darker, they looked up and saw a tiny point of light in the restroom sky...."

haha :o)

We're Alive!

Hello!

Did you think we had disappeared??

Well, we are back in the blogging world and SO happy to be living in Austin!

Here's a little recap of the last few months for ya:

- We moved in with my parents in June.
- Hannah turned THREE!
- We hunted for houses like crazy.
- We found a house that we love!
- Lorne went back to Atlanta for a month to work on research :o(
- Lorne came back and we officially bought our first home!
- Lorne went up to the house every night after work to paint the girls' new rooms.
- Lorne's parents came to help with painting and moving our stuff in. (Thank you!)
- The Cooks came last weekend to help put up some finishing touches (Thank you!)
- On Monday we officially moved in to our new house!

We love our new house, we love our new neighborhood, we love being in Texas! We feel so incredibly blessed.

Our next door neighbors just moved in a week before we did, and they have 2 little girls just about the same ages as Hannah and Mary Kate! We are so excited! We went over to their house to play yesterday and Ava and Hannah dressed up like princesses and danced around Ava's room. It was so precious!

I'm not going to promise pictures of the house anytime soon b/c there are still many boxes to be unpacked, but eventually I'll post some :o)

Two nights ago Mary Kate woke up in the night crying, and when I looked at the video monitor I saw our sweet baby sitting up all by herself! I was so surprised and so proud! She has also been getting up on all fours a lot lately - I'm just waiting for her to take off crawling!

That's all for now :o)