School’s going great. I’ve been taking about 28 units a semester and will graduate in December with my bachelors and teaching credential. I can’t wait! But I’ve also been loving being back at school and learning again. Going for your dreams works!

I don’t have much time to sew. I’ve made some bags, scarves, an occasional dress or shirt, but nothing regular. I miss it terribly, but those small projects feed my creativity, still. I do still sew for clients, some, and have my etsy shop up with new additions occasionally. I miss parts of blogging, but then again I don’t miss it. It seems like blogs are so prevalent now and so competitive, with new tactics as to how to promote and get followers, etc… I think that pressure would have taken the enjoyment out of it for me. And I definitely couldn’t have done it with going to school, so it proved my time had come.

The family is doing great, growing up so much and being so supportive of me and my school work. They’re amazing.

And I had to once more, thank you all. At least once a week I get an encouraging email, a nice comment on the website or questions and those mean SO much to me. You guys are all the best. Always have been.

So hello, and goodbye again. I hope you’re all having a beautiful day

We have known each other since I was 7 years old. We both went to school at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. Veeerry long story short we got engaged when he was 20 and I 21 and moved back home to Santa Cruz after 3 years of college to finish school here and begin our new life together around our family and friends.

(our first christmas at home with Zach’s family)

 I did poorly in college. I mean really poorly. Despite my family’s emphasis on education growing up,I completely took this gift of education that I was given for granted. Growing up we went to visit colleges across the country and my parents and relatives always encouraged us to work hard and gave us every resource we needed to succeed.  I never tried hard and it showed.  When we moved here, with little motivation, I decided to do some work at the community college to get my grades up and finish at a local state school.

After 8 months of marriage I unexpectedly became pregnant. At first we were shocked. Once that shock wore off, we got a little more used to the idea. At 7 weeks I was home by myself taking a shower preparing for our first doctors appointment and I passed out in the shower. I crawled out and got sick on the bathroom floor while going in and out of consciousness. I somehow pulled myself together and got to the couch and began feeling “better”. Zach came to pick me up for my doctors appointment where he had to carry me to the car. I, in my youth and ignorance, thought this was bad morning sickness. At the doctors they couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat. I passed out in the exam room again and was just out of it. They wanted me to come back in a week to check for a heartbeat.

I got better throughout the day. But the next day I began bleeding. We called the doctor and it was concluded that I was miscarrying. We were both very sad. It was such a whirlwind- getting married, getting pregnant, losing a pregnancy. I went in a week later, by myself, to check and make sure the miscarriage had taken its course. As I was getting my exam the nurse who was doing the ultrasound began freaking out- like cursing freaking out. All of a sudden she pulled out the doppler and I hear a heart beating.  I was so confused, you have no idea.  She ran out of the room and I was left in there wondering what in the world was going on. She came back in and brought me into the doctors office. At this point I had called Zach and he rushed over because we both knew something was wrong. They told me that I did not miscarry. I was, in fact, still pregnant. It was a tubal pregnancy and my tube had ruptured and I had been bleeding internally for a week now. They rushed me into emergency surgery where they cauterized my tube and removed the two liters of blood that were close to my brain at that point. If it would have gone any longer, I might have been in big trouble.

What came after was months of sadness, depression and post traumatic stress. I was so young, with none of my other friends even married. I felt like I had no one to relate this deep sadness to.  I was so worried that I wouldn’t be able to get pregnant again.  Zach and I grew so close during this time. But any little motivation left I had for school disappeared. I continued to work at the school my children now go to and just kept telling myself and others that I’d go back to school soon.

Slowly, through nothing but the grace of faith, I got better. A year later I got pregnant with Isabel. We were both so thrilled to be becoming parents. Because of my previous traumatic experience I have always had to work through deep anxieties during my pregnancies, but we have successfully had three beautiful and healthy children.

Isabel Valentina Maria

Ava Grace

Giselle Antoinette Jeanne

Zach has always been so supportive of me being a stay at home mother. I think we’re both so grateful that I’ve gotten to be home with our children, working my hardest to love them , instill a deep faith in them and take care of our home and their lives in it. Once all the children came, I never desired to go back to school. I was so fulfilled in this space. Then I began doing creative things that nourished me, who I was. I began sewing. Slowly at first, then it became a deep rooted passion. A couple years after beginning sewing, I started a blog, My Mama Made It, to catalogue things I had been doing for the girls and had begun sewing for me.  It was my outlet, my own thing, my own space. I never thought it would go anywhere, I just thought it was fun. I always allowed it to be whatever the Lord desired it to be. I didn’t have aspirations or goals for it. It just brought me joy. Slowly it began growing. Things got bigger and went places I never imagined. But I always left it in God’s hands and just went with the open doors that came with it.

Fast forward to this year and I have two children in school, one at home.

Things are so different for me with just one at home. I began realizing in a couple of years, I will have no children at home to mother during the day! (tears) Where did the time go? Weren’t they just born? (right now ‘Sunrise, Sunset’ from Fiddler on the Roof is playing through my head.) Through a small sequence of events which I won’t make this post any longer with, the Lord awakened a deep desire in me within in a flash.

I want to be a teacher.

After ten years- re enter college.  I begin the college journey again at the age of 32. I’ve decided to finish online so I can still be at home with Giselle and fully present to the family. I haven’t chosen an online program yet (any recommendations??) and the thought of the work, effort and costs are quite daunting. But Zach and I both feel it’s, no doubt, the right path. I think I have about three years to complete the program.

Re-enter the blog. I’ve been praying over the last few days asking God what the purpose of me having the blog was. I was just plain curious. I realized something so important and so very humbling. What sewing has done for me, nothing else could.

It’s taught me patience, determination, research, precision, motivation, the importance of quality, and follow through. Working on something for hours, never giving up, working hard and seeing your finished product in the end has given me a feeling of success that I never had before. I love that about sewing.

Then the blog, where to begin. What YOU have taught me and helped me with is self confidence. Having something that was mine that people liked and praised. I began believing in ME, in the abilities that God has given me. I had to work hard to discover them but he helped me dig and then such beautiful things grew from this little garden He planted within me.  It was always His and when I allowed Him to water it how He saw fit, things grew that I didn’t know existed within me. For all the comments, emails, encouragement, constructive criticism and for just following along, thank you. You have no idea how much it’s done within me.

Small fears have already crept in. Can I do this? Can I do all that I do at home well and do school? What if I won’t be as good at this as I hope to be? But I just have to try my hardest, with this new desire and motivation and….  trust.

So tying that all in with beginning college again, I know I couldn’t begin again without all the lessons I’ve learned along the way. I still feel terrible for squandering the opportunity the first time. It was my own poor choices. But I’m going to finish what I started, this time with much more heart and passion that has grown in me through my journey here.

To finish school, be a stay at home mother and wife, and run this blog would be impossible for me. Something would suffer. So as my faith is always first and my family  is next I must let go of the blog. It would just be too much work and diversifying of attention. And I really want to do school right this time around. I still had so many things to show you and ideas are still swarming through my head, ones that I’ll now never post. Letting Made By Lex  go leaves me in a slight state of grief, but I also feel so much peace about it. The Lord has allowed it to serve it’s purpose in my life, one that I had no idea of originally. I might pop in here and there, who knows. But my intention is to focus my full attention elsewhere. The website  will still be up so you can still check al the tutorials, and access anything you need, and my etsy shop will still be active.

With excitement, tears, trepidation, and gratitude I humbly say

 I am also beyond blessed to be the sister to 1 brother and 4 sisters. Get ready for a lenghty, bragging post. It’s long overdue.

After me, there is my sister, Francesca. We all have nicknames for each other because growing up we couldn’t pronounce all the names. I was Lala. Francesca is Caca. My kids still call her Aunty Caca. Unfortunate how that one turned out, I know.

Isn’t she unbelievable gorgeous? Yes. She we have the same mother and father. She just got all the Italian genes.

Many of you know about the big change we went through this year. Even through the suffering, their family has so much joy. To say that THIS is my sister is humbling. She is a woman of faith beyond imagination and of grace, elegance and strength. (you can read more of her own words, here) I’m so, so proud.I’m so thankful to have Phillip as my brother in law. He is a father and husband that I couldn’t put into words if I tried.

Their son, John, brings so much joy into all of our lives.

He’s a wonderful and adoring brother.

My niece Gia is utterly edible. I don’t know what else to say about her. Sometimes if I’m feeling down I just pull up her picture and stare at it. It immediately warms my heart.

Then there is our sweet, Stella, who has had more impact on mine and my children’s life then anything ever has, and possibly ever will.

After Francesca, there is my sister, Antonia, or Toto.

What I wish I could do is a whole post on funny photos of her. While she is beautiful, we have more picture of her doing the funniest things. I have to share one…

Oh my… Anyhow. That’s what I love about her. She’s the “funny one” in the family. She makes us all laugh so hard with her quick comments. She brings ‘lightness’ to our family. Life would be so dull without her. AND- she loves my girls so much. She’s completely selfless. She lets them sit on her lap at every family dinner and they drive her crazy, but she would never say no. She loves them that much and more.

Next is Clare, or Nini. You are probably the most familiar with her since she is the face of this blog. I just took some engagement pictures of her and her fiance, Nick, so I have to show off a couple.

Nick is our soon to be brother in law and he is a great man of faith who adores my sister.

Aside from being beautiful, Clare is a deep thinker, exceedingly caring and not only my sister but a good friend. The thing I love about Clare is she goes against the grain. For example, she doesn’t shave her legs. She doesn’t want to shave them because she thinks why should she have to do it to be beautiful? While we joke about it endlessly, it’s pretty awesome. A few years ago when we went to Disneyland we dropped into Beverly Hills to visit (we used to live down in Southern California). Clare decided to wear this onto Rodeo Drive. Just because.

Next is the only boy, Joseph. Here is he is holding my sister at a wedding we went to. They were dancing. I still don’t know what kind of dancing this is.

 As the only boy of 6, I feel like my sisters and I should take some kind of credit for him being a pretty awesome guy.  He’s also worked so hard to get into Notre Dame. He is also the BEST uncle. He is so interested in the girls lives. When he’s home from college he spends so much time with his nieces. He babysits and not only are the girls well loved, but the house is cleaner then when I left it. He’s my favorite babysitter. He and Zach are also best friends. I never imagined that my brother and my husband would be so close. But they are like real brothers. When Joe left for college the first time, watching them say goodbye to each other was heartbreaking. I don’t think I had enough tissue in the house to dry both of their tears. Zach cried for two days.

The youngest is Ana. 

She brings so much to the family. She is deeply creative and it’s always fun to see what she’s working on. She has great style, is a talented artist and has such good ideas for all sorts of things. She plays with the girls and they love following her around to see what she’s up to. She’s a caring aunt and a great friend.

My siblings and I are really close. I feel the most comfortable around all of them. We do a lot of interesting things together. We do weird photos.

We do organized, and madly competitive, relay races on family vacations.

We set up mud slides on Christmas morning.

We perform. Probably too much.

We dress up in public places and take pictures of ourselves. It was hard to choose from the 100′s I had.

Most importantly, we’re there for each other. Maybe this is my way of thanking them. I feel safe with them and loved by them. I feel grateful to each of them for all they’ve done in my life, in Zach’s and the girls. They each play a very different, very important role in my life. I can’t imagine life without each of them. they are 5 of the things I’m most grateful to God for. I not only have 5 siblings, but I’m close to them all, in different ways and at different times, but close, none the less. It’s more then most lucky people get. I know that.

My parents.

This is my mom, Valjean. She has instilled in our family a sense of togetherness, unity, and faith above all else. As a mother, now, I know how much she has sacrificed some of her own desires as a woman to fulfill those of her children. She is a wonderful example of a loyal and kind woman, an astounding listener and a woman after God’s heart.

She does great things with the girls. She picks out special books for them, reads to them, packs them special little snacks before we leave their house and gardens with them.

You know,the kind of things you hold in your heart forever.

This is my dad, Rob. (on the left with my grandma and his brother, Ron.)
He is the most supportive dad. He’s the first person I call to talk about mostly anything. He always has had time for me and in a family of 6, I’ve always felt important. (not an easy task, I imagine) One of the things I’ve loved is that he’s taken us all over the country on vacations. He sacrificed his time ,work and money and shown us some of the most amazing, naturally beautiful places. But it wasn’t only the places that were meaningful. It was the time we spent together as a family. We’re talking DAYS of driving together in a van. It has created some of the most meaningful memories for me.

Family was, and is, always first.

This is what I’ve been blessed with.

How grateful I am.

And for those that didn’t win, Harts is having 10% off the entire store right now. Sign up for their newsletter to get great tips and discounts!

Can you guess which project they wanted?

The “Mama’s Got a New Dress”.

What’s even more exciting is it made the UK versions cover!!

Anyhow, check out their facebook page for updates, news and sneak peeks of the new book. The new One Yard Wonders book will be released some time this month. Congratulations to all the contributors!