Ole Miss Graduate

My Chad started Ole Miss many moons ago. Life got in his way, so it took him a while to finish. BUT HE FINISHED! Thats all that matters in my book!

My younger cousin, Jake, graduated from Mississippi State the same day that Chad did.

My aunt threw them a family divided party to celebrate!!

Here are some pictures from that day....

 Waiting for Jake to walk

Jake

Chad and my mom

Reeves and I with the graduate

the graduate

I love him!!

Reeves fell asleep while Chad pushed him on the swing.

The graduates

A family divided

Waiting on the crawfish

My aunt and I

Reeves and his new friend

The cakes

Chad had such an amazing time!! We want to thank Christie & Paul for throwing such an amazing party!!! Its a day Chad will never forget!!!

Update on the Wicker Family

So, it's been a while. I've missed you. A lot has changed in the Wicker World. I got a job, Chad graduated from Ole Miss, Reeves is potty-trained, talking, no baba 3 year old!

Chad and I had been throwing around the idea of me going back to work for a while. Nothing was concrete, I thought we were just "talking". We were afraid that Reeves wasn't getting enough social interaction. One afternoon Chad asked for my resume. I didn't think anything about it until I got a call from the principal of SHS asking if I wanted to come in for an interview. I called Chad right away, he just laughed. Crazy man. I went for the interview and was hired as the front desk secretary. We quickly (and luckily) found a babysitter for Reeves. She is a nurse and has 5 kids of her own. She was keeping a few other kids at her house. She is a godsend! We are so lucky to have her. Reeves loves her!

Day one of working, I knew we made the right decision! I love the people I work with, which makes leaving my baby all day worth it. I think it has been the best thing for Reeves and I. He has come so far in the last year, he has truly blossomed!

2 months after working at SHS I got the opportunity to be the ADA clerk (attendance clerk). I've been doing attendance for 7 months and I love it!

Reeves is now potty-trained! If you've ever had to potty train a little boy, you'll know how exciting this truly is! We also said bye-bye to the baba! We were so excited to see it go! Reeves has come so far this year with his speech. He was a little behind, I think it was the baba! He goes to speech theory 4 days a week, its more like a preschool. He loves it and its done wonders for him!

Chad has been going to school for the last few years to get his degree in Political Science from Ole Miss. He finally graduated in May 2015!! We are so proud of him! He has plans to get his masters from Arkansas State. I can't wait to see what all he does.

We have been super busy on our little house!! We completely redid the office! We are in the works of making over our master bedroom and bathroom. We have plans to pour new concrete to extend the patio in our backyard soon! As well as tons of other exciting things!!!

Stay tuned to see what all we do!!

Update of the blog

Hey ya'll! Its been a loooooong time and I'm sorry for that! In August 2014 I was sitting in the living room playing with Reeves when I got a call from the principal of a local high school. Long story short, my husband sent him my resume and I got a job! I started a week later. We found Reeves an amazing babysitter who keeps a few kids in her home. I'll share more details later. Things really worked out well for us, but we got super busy! Chad finished his degree at Ole Miss while working full time.

Since I went back to work, I stopped blogging. I missed it all the time! The blog hadn't been up very long when I got the job, but don't worry, I never stopped creating and changing things so I have a ton of updates and new posts for you! (that was the longest run-on sentence ever, sorry!)

Ashley has been just as busy, if not more. I'll let her tell you on her first new post!!!

Stay tuned for the first NEW blog!!!

How To Get Dog Smell Out Of Carpet

As ya'll know we have 2 big dogs and a cat. Deigo is 5 years old and Coal uses the litter box but ole Tucker is only 7 months old. He has had way too many accidents on the carpet. Plus Reeves has spilled many sippy cups. We have a steam cleaner so our carpet doesn't "look" terrible... well as long as you come after I've cleaned them.

But the smell is still there! My biggest fear is someone is going to come in our house and only smell dog! Plus, Reeves is always playing on the floor and the thought of him smelling it is too much for me to handle!

Here's what I do:

FIRST, I vacuumed the floors REALLY good. I vacuumed in the direction I normally do, then I vacuumed in the opposite direction. German Shepherds have 2 coats, so in the spring & summer Deigo is constantly shedding hair! I look forward to the fall and winter when he has his winter coat! Normally I vacuum twice before steam cleaning, otherwise my cleaner would get clogged!!

SECOND, I get my steam cleaner ready. I use Bissell pet stain and you can get it HERE. I clean the carpets. This step will get the stains off the carpet, but not the smell.

THIRD, a week later, after the carpets have dried completely, I repeat the first step. Then I mix a white vinegar mixture. I fill half the tank with white vinegar, I add 1 cup of the Bissell, 3 Tbsp blue Dawn and fill it the rest of the way with water.

FORTH, I clean the carpets again. I usually do this step once a month while I only clean for stains when needed.

Fabric Napkin

I don't know if its a southern thing but I LOVE FABRIC NAPKINS!! When I was growing up thats the only napkin we used at my grandmother's... we still use the same ones!!

My aunt (the laundry Queen) made me some for Christmas a few years ago but they were mostly holiday ones. I wanted some everyday ones, and so did my mom. We decided to buy fabric together and share it!

Off to Hancocks we went... and we got a little crazy! We kept finding fabric we LOVED!! I bought some Ole Miss fabric from a friend for $5! I also had some left over sock monkey fabric from Reeves' nursery. I brought both of those to add to my collection of napkins.

We bought 6 different fabrics (yes, I know there is 7 in the picture below. One is for Reeves's birthday party.. that's another post). We bought 2 yards of each to share. We got between 14-16 napkins from those 2 yards.

Here is what we used. We also used a singer serger like THIS one.... only my grandmother's is about 20 years old!

First we had to decide how to fold it to get the most napkins at the size we wanted. This was the hardest part!

We finally decided to fold equally three times and cut then we repeated. Until we had 6 long strips then we cut the napkins to size. We always had a little extra.

We used a rotary cutter  and a mat.

I tried to use the rotary cutter and I barely cut the top layer. So I knew this couldn't be my job!

So I passed the job on my mom. She cut the fabric with the rotary cutter but had to go over each layer a few times to get it to cut. Finally we decided my grandmother's rotary cutter was dull! 

So my grandmother took over. She cut all 6 layers of fabric in ONE swipe! Clearly she found her job for the project!!

Yay! We finally had a product that looked like a napkin!!!

Now on to the serger! I knew I wanted to sew, but I had never used a serger before.  My grandmother gave me a quick lesson! First she had to change the thread. I zoned out on this boring step. Oops!

Testing the new thread. Below is my mom (in the pink) and grandmother.

Finally I got to sew! 

The first one!!!!!!!

We cut out and sewed napkins for 2 days and still didn't finish!!!

My grandmother and I working away. Like my headband?!

These are the napkins we finished and I brought home. I had to leave 2 fabrics at my grandmother for her to finish serging around the edges. 

They have a special drawer to live in!!!!

We use them every night at dinner!! I LOVE THEM!!!!!