The Winner of the Thermal Is... (and Some Pictures of the Miss Lillabel)

It has been a busy week here! My brother Jason was here last weekend and my sister Jamie and her husband Josh are here now visiting us. Jon's Aunt Nancy and Uncle Rex were also visiting Williamsburg this past week with their friends Debbie and Lloyd and we got to see them several times. Lillie had soooo much fun with "Unka" and it was so nice getting to see the Bennetts! I was awful with my camera again and didn't get any pictures of Jason's visit or Nancy and Rex =(. I did finally pull my camera out this afternoon, though, and got some pictures of Lillie playing out on the green in front of the Governor's Palace in Colonial Williamsburg.

Here's Miss Lillabel wearing our Hadley Hat that is now available with a flower clip and our Thermal Fairyland Silhouette Shirt 

Playing Football

 

What an arm! Haha!

 Playing with the leaves

 Miss Lillie with Auntie Jamie and Uncle Josh

Lillie and Auntie Jamie

Lillie and Auntie Dana

Waving to the horsies pulling the carriage

And now it's time for the winner of our Vintage Crown Thermal!

Congratulations to Ashley!

Send us an e-mail to dearlillie@hotmail.com letting us know what size you would like and your shipping address and we will get that out in the mail for you!

I hope you all have a most wonderful weekend!

Jamie and Josh's House

My sister Jamie, and her husband Josh, started building a home about two years ago. Now, when I say building a home, I don't mean having someone build a home for them, I mean they literally built it themselves with their bare hands (with help from friends and family - especially Josh's parents). They hammered in every nail and laid down every floorboard and put up all the insulation...you get the picture. I don't think Jamie had any idea what they were getting into when they started - haha!

Last December they were able to move in but still had a lot of work to do. Slowly it has been coming together and last week when Lillie and I took a trip up to NH we were excited to see it really was starting to look like a home! I know they are so happy. It has really come together beautifully and they have done an absolutely fabulous job! They still have a lot more decorating to do and as they continue I will post more pictures whenever I travel up to NH (we are going to have Lillie birthday party there in December). For now though, here are a few spaces that are nearing completion:

Here is their dining room. Pretty much everything you see here was either an antique or thrift store find! The wall color is one of my favorites - Alexandria Beige by Benjamin Moore. We used it in our last home and I planning on painting our nursery for our new wee one this color.

Here is an old toolbox Jamie found at an antique shop and it is sitting on a burlap runner she made. The dining room table they are using is really pretty but they are actually planning on moving it to another room as soon as they find an old farmhouse table to put in here. When they do I will show some pictures of that.

This little rocking chair was Josh's when he was a boy.

The kitchen isn't completely done yet but here are some pictures of what is finished so far! I love the finishes they did!

Here are a couple of pictures I stole from Jamie of her window sill above her kitchen sink.

A couple kitchen close-ups.

The entry from the garage into the kitchen/dining room. I love how it turned out. I really can't wait to show you the main entryway but it isn't quite done so it will have to wait for now. It is going to be absolutely gorgeous though!

I adore the double front doors!!!!!

And here is a picture of Jamie and Josh with my munchkin from this summer.

That's it for now. I can't wait to show you more, though, as they finish each room!

Don't forget to enter our giveaway for this thermal! Either scroll down a few posts or click here to enter.

 Tatertots and Jello is also hosting a giveaway for one of our items going on now as well!

I hope you all are having a great week!

Midnight Madness and a Couple New Designs I Need Help Deciding On

Two Fridays ago basketball season started once again. Basketball has been a huge part of my life since I was just a few days old. I attended my first game when I was a week old (Lillie beat me though, she attended her first game when she was just five days old). My parents both played and my dad was a basketball coach. My siblings and I all played year round growing up - regular winter teams, plus AAU and summer leagues. When I headed off to college, although I knew I would miss it terribly, I thought my basketball days were coming to an end. Little did I know what I had ahead of me...haha! After transferring my sophomore year to UNC-Chapel Hill from an art school in Manhattan I ended up meeting Jon who was on the team there. We started dating a couple of years later while he was playing professionally over in Europe and then he started coaching and we got engaged and then married and now my life is back to revolving around basketball again! Any of you who followed my blog last winter when I first started blogging know that from November through March some of my posts will somewhat revolve around William and Mary basketball. Last year was a particularly exciting year as it was basically the best one in school history (we upset both Wake Forest and Maryland at their arenas and made it to the Championship Game of the CAA and then got invited to the NIT which was only the second time in school history that we had played in the post season. At one point in the middle of the year we were even ranked in the top 25 in one of the polls!) Now I am not sure if this year will be quite as exciting, but I am sure every now and again some basketball news will slip into my posts. So, for any of you that are not into sports or basketball I do apologize, but it is basically what we live and breathe around here so it is hard for it not to come up every once in a while. Don't worry though, most of my posts will still be about Dear Lillie, decorating or other more "girly" things.

Anyway, here are a few photos I got off of the Tribe Athletics site from Midnight Madness because I was lazy and didn't take any that night. All of the photos are from a really great sports photographer here in Williamsburg named Jim Agnew. As you can see Lillie seemed to think she was a part of the festivities! She had a blast but I don't think it was probably smart on our part to have let her because I am afraid now she is most definitely NOT going to appreciate that she has to sit in her seat during the games and can't be involved in all of the excitement.

Jon and Lillie wearing Quinn's cowboy hat

I love this picture!

Thanks to Lillie's excitement I got to sit in my seat for about 5 minutes and then got stuck standing the whole rest of time.

JohnMark gave Lillie a rose during his introduction. She already had a crush on him (he's the one who saved her from the snake a month or so ago) but now she is in love and says "JohnMark" about ten times a day and then giggles.

All photos by Jim Agnew 

Okay, back to some Dear Lillie stuff. Here are three new designs on I am working on. The first one I definitely want to use but am torn on which text to use and which color way, although I do know I plan on printing it on the same gray thermal we use for our thermal vintage crown shirts. 

For this first one I used a paragraph from Little Women:

"My child, the troubles and temptations of your life are beginning, and may be many; but you can overcome and outlive them all if you learn to feel the strength and tenderness of your Heavenly Father as you do that of your earthly one. The more you love and trust Him, the nearer you will feel to Him, and the less you will depend on human power and wisdom. His love and care never tire or change, can never be taken from you, but may become the source of lifelong peace, happiness, and strength. Believe this heartily, and go to God with all your little cares, and hopes, and sins, and sorrows, as freely and confidingly as you come to your mother."  — Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)



And for the second text option I used another Louisa May Alcott quote:

"For love is a flower that grows in any soil, works its sweet miracles undaunted by autumn frost or winter snow, blooming fair and fragrant all the year, and blessing those who give and those who receive."




To say I LOVED Anne of Green Gables growing up would be an understatement! Here is a quote I have always found amusing from it:

"Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive -- it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there? But am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didn't talk? If you say so I'll stop. I can stop when I make up my mind to it, although it's difficult." — L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

I am torn on whether Anne should be sitting on the trunks or standing. And I think I will be printing these on possibly a thermal and then definitely the same olive green tunics that we used for our vintage crown tunics although I am torn on whether I am going to print these now or wait until spring.

This quote was actually submitted by one of our blog readers named Felicia when we held our first ever contest back in June so if we use it you will get two free shirts, Felicia! I haven't really had time to play around with this one too much yet, though and am not really happy with it as is.



Let me know what you think about which text to use for the first shirt and whether you like Anne alone or with her trunks better. I hope you all have a most lovely week!

It's a...

So, I had a sonogram yesterday. I am a little under 13 weeks so wasn't sure if they would be able to take a guess or not on whether is was a boy or girl. However, after a little while of not cooperating at all, our little munchkin decided to cooperate nicely and the incredibly sweet sonogram technician informed us that she was 80% sure it was a...

 GIRL!!!!!!!!

And of course when it came time for the 4D part she decided to snuggle up and hide so I didn't get to see much of her =(.... However, it did make my heart melt seeing her little back and arms and legs looking so real. It was so exciting to hear her little heartbeat too. I feel like I am on cloud nine! I am going to try and be patient, though, and not go out and buy a bunch of pink yet. We have a second sonogram on December 17th so I am going to hold off until then to go too crazy! However, we are going to start working on coming up wtih some girl names we can agree on! We had a boy's name picked out that shockingly we both loved, but girl's names are turning out to be much harder to see eye to eye on.

Don't forget to scroll down and enter the giveaway for our crown thermal!!!!!

Have a wonderful weekend!