Life with Evie

Basic steps for how to alter a t-shirt

2011-11-26T21:58:00.000-06:00

I am going to attempt to do a mini-tutorial to show how I went about altering some basic boy t-shirts to a more flattering girl shirt to do freezer stenciling on.

I started with a plain white Hanes t-shirt in size M(6-8). I looked for basic girls shirts in a multi pack but couldn't find any, so I had to settle for the boys version. But to make them into a cute girly shirt I wanted to alter them a little so they weren't so big and boxy. This shirt was for a friend's little girl who just turned 7. Luckily I have some cute bigger size shirts stashed for Evie in totes, so I grabbed an Old Navy size small which is around a 6/7 I think.

I started by cutting the sleeves off as close to the seems as I could, then I laid the other shirt over and cut along the sides about 1/2 to 3/4 inch away to give a little room for growth. I left the length because it was only a little longer than I wanted it and it made it a lot faster!

Next, I took the sleeves, one at a time, and pinned them back onto the shoulder putting right sides together. I started with the center and then went out towards each end.

Then I used my serger and reattached it. I repeated this on the other sleeve and then I flipped the shirt right sides together (sorry I forgot to take a picture) and pinned the sleeves and sides together, making sure that the end of the sleeve and the bottom shirt hem were lined up. I serged these too, starting at the sleeve and finishing at the bottom hem.

There are a few different ways you can take care of the ends of the serger thread. You can tie them off, snip them and use fray check or, like I did below, thread them back into the serged edge.

Then, I had Evie model it over her pj's. This is what happens when I say "smile at the camera"! If there are any distractions she smiles while looking at them instead.

And, I couldn't help showing off the pretty black sparkly M! I LOVE the glitter topcoat... maybe more than the one I used on the Kenzie onsie (though this picture doesn't do it justice). I'm so bummed that they are clearing them out at Hancock's... well, not about the price I guess :) But I'm going to have to go grab whatever they have left!

So, that's it! I have a few shirts that I need to use this on - like the XL shirt from my 1st July 4th 5k run. GIGANTIC! And poor Evie doesn't have a freezer stencil shirt yet either!

Note: If you don't have a serger, you will want to use a stretch stitch if possible. I'm not sure how a zig zag would work for side seems. If you shorten any of the hems, my suggestion is to get a double needle, they are incredibly easy to use and give the shirt that nice finished look AND they stretch like a zig zag stitch so they are great for knit fabric. Here is a great tutorial on different stitches and using a double needle.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T00:19:00.000-06:00

What is Thanksgiving?

I would guess that the first images that pop in your head would have to do with turkeys, pumpkins, lots of food, family gatherings, maybe football (if you are like my husband!)... but what does it really mean? Why do we celebrate it? It is so hard sometimes to focus on the intended meaning behind many holidays here in the United States. With all the materialism and media influence over time, things seem to shift WAY off course.

according to Dictionary.com,

Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday celebrated as a day of feasting and giving thanks for divine favors or goodness, observed on the fourth Thursday of November in the U.S. and in Canada on the second Monday of October.

thanks·giv·ing [thangks-giv-ing]

noun

1. the act of giving thanks; grateful acknowledgment of benefits or favors, especially to God.

2. an expression of thanks, especially to God.

3. a public celebration in acknowledgment of divine favor or kindness.

4. a day set apart for giving thanks to God.

5. ( initial capital letter ) Thanksgiving Day.

We've got the "day of feasting" part down, no question there! But what about the "giving thanks"? I know I could be better at it. I am a Christian and so I believe that every good thing comes from God...

I am so thankful for...

God

He is the reason, for everything good in my life

My Husband

my best friend and #1 cheerleader

My amazing daughter, Evie

she is the best teacher God has given me

and filled with so much love it never

ceases to amaze me!

My family

My church

Especially my women's group (Titus2)

these girls are such an amazing support group

There are so many other things that I am truly thankful for! I pray that you would be reminded of all the blessings in your life today and every day!

There is always at least one thing to be thankful for every day!

Camo isn't just for boys!

2011-11-22T19:40:00.000-06:00

Am I the only person who has a habit of starting a project meant for a gift and then not always getting it completed, thus leaving me with cut out pieces of various things that I have to try to find new homes for? Well, this happened out of one of those projects. I don't even remember who the original recipient was anymore. It had been for a new baby boy though, so after a certain point the size 0-3 month pants and hat were no longer going to work. I started with digital camouflage fleece cut out for an infant hat and pants, then I had an idea to turn it into an outfit for my new niece (whose oldest brother is a HUGE camo fan).

I sewed up the pants and hat. Added a black fleece flower on the hat and black fleece "ruffle" on the bottom of the pants, to make them girly. Then I moved on to the onsie...

I cut out a freezer stencil for military id tags and mixed up some fabric paints to come up with a shiny metal look for the front tag (turned out PERFECT) and an avocado green for the back tag.

Then for the chain, I used the back of one of my small paint brushes as a stamp for the ball part and then a teeny tiny brush to make the thin connections. I folded up the neckline so the chain disappears underneath. Viola!

Then, originally had the idea to use some tiny typewriter font letter stamps I had but I couldn't get the paint to transfer right so I had to freehand the lettering. I put her first and middle name on line 1, birthday on line 2 and then line 3 is the work "destined" in Hebrew, which is the spiritual connotation for the name Kenzie.

Ta-da! In this picture the hat kind of looks like one of those bucket helmets (probably not what they are really called).

I have also been tinkering around with homemade labels...

Fun, no?! Yes!

More Freezer Stencil Shirts (I'm addicted!)

2011-11-21T16:41:00.000-06:00

Sorry this has taken me so long to get out here! I had the pictures of these shirts started a long time ago but I couldn't show them until the recipients actually GOT them! We had a new niece born at the end of September and I had gotten a bunch of clothes to send out to my sister in law for her but they also have two older boys age 6 and 3 so I wanted to be able to include something for them in the box too without it being to heavy. So, I came up with these shirts! I was just going to put their first initial on them but after some thought decided to add the rest of the name in smaller letters.

The oldest nephew's was easy to come up with. He LOVES camouflage, I think he would be content if his entire wardrobe consisted of nothing else! So, I used the "stencil" font and then I hand painted the design. I was really happy about how it turned out. Except, I did find that when painting in a larger area on knit fabric the fabric will stretch a little and end up not as flat and even. I tried to fix this by putting paper over top and ironing it to coax it back into place and ended up with a very slight wave in the I which may go away (or get worse I suppose) after washing.

The next was a lot harder. I had planned on just making them unique to each child by the paint within the stencil boarders only, no extra designs. Judah loves green, so I started with that but then got stuck... I just couldn't come up with anything I thought he would like much and didn't want him to feel like Isaiah's was "cooler". I put his on hold and worked on baby girl's then when I came back to it the only thing I wanted to do was have it yellow instead of green.... well I tested the cover up of yellow over green on my fancy paint palette and as you can see, not so great. Then I decided to test a "primer" of the cream color and it seemed to block it out so I started layering.

Cream and then the bright yellow.

And this is what I came up with for the construction vehicle lover :) SO much for my original plan *sigh* I'm learning to be flexible though.

Then my favorite font for girly letters is the "curlz". So, I did purple and then finished it with a glitter topcoat (which you can't see very well here) but believe you me, it was ADORABLE!

Don't believe me? You will after this picture!

First real snow of the year!

2011-11-20T22:44:00.000-06:00

Imagine our wondering eyes November 9th when we woke up to over 3 inches of lovely white! Evie exclaimed "SNOW! Snow, snow, snow... YAY winter!"

We hurried through our breakfast but by the time we got outside it had warmed up so much that it was pretty sloshy but she REALLY wanted to build a snowman. So, I thought 'why not THREE snowmen?' A little family :) She thought it was great! Carrot stick noses, stick arms and black beans for eyes and mouths!

A line of snow angels

Got the jeep stuck... didn't have snow tires on yet ;)

By later that day the family had thinned up a lot and didn't take long to disappear after that... but they'll be back, the next time it snows!

Prince Ky and Princess Evie

2011-11-18T17:55:00.000-06:00

Ky comes to our house on Tuesdays. Most of the time they just play but every once in a while I have crafts for them to do. We paint, we color, we did sticky faces on little pie pumpkins... this time Evie wanted to be prince and princess so I had an idea. We had some paper crowns left from her birthday party back in February and so I got those out for them to color on and then I embellished them with gold puffy paint and fake jewels. Evie also decided that Ky needed a sword and a shield so I pulled out the cereal boxes that I had been saving and went to work. Some foil, glue and more puffy paint later... wah-lah!

Defending the kingdom with swords and mirrors!

Fun at the Farm! aka Becky's house

2011-11-17T16:59:00.000-06:00

Do you know where your eggs come from? We do! We even know the chickens! If you have never had fresh eggs, you don't know what you are missing! After having these kind, if you make scrambled eggs from regular store bought they look like scrambled egg whites! And there is so much flavor! Anyhow, that is not what this post is about...

Here is the egg factory and off to the right is the rooster keeping an eye on us so we don't get too close to his ladies! He was crowing every 30 seconds while we were standing there!

Caught him in the middle of a "cocka doodle doo"!

While mom and I were perusing the pumpkins and gourds, Evie got chilly so Becky asked if she could take her out to feed a gourd to one of the cows. Sure! I didn't know cows ate gourds but I guess it makes sense.

Becky did this one because Evie was a bit unsure and dropped the gourd before Jenny the cow had a good hold on it.

Trying to pet her... Evie is facinated by all kinds of animals.

She looks so small next to that giant Jenny cow! This time she got it in her mouth good before she took her hand away. Such a brave little girl!

They didn't come any closer and backed away when Evie tried to go to them. Then Becky said, maybe that's enough for now... I think she was getting concerned that Evie would get squished if she went in between them, which she seemed to have no fear of doing!

Her display barn for all the fall goodies! I bet it was bursting at the seems before we went the weekend right before Halloween.

Love these Cinderella pumpkins! Becky said that they are really good for baking with too, not just to look at ;)

Simple, just the way I like it!

1 Drape to 3 Drapes

2011-10-24T22:16:00.000-05:00

Last summer, we repainted our master bathroom and a few other areas in our house. We had had mini blinds on the window in there since I replaced the towels I hung up when we first moved in and so I got rid of them because really they are not the best coverage for a room that you are naked in. Anyhow, after it was repainted I got a tension rod to put inside the frame and stuck this brown curtain panel in there "temporarily". I forgot to get a before picture because I have been meaning to cut and hem this curtain for over a year now so once I decided to do it, I just got going! To give you and idea of how long the curtain was before, the top section in this picture is for my bathroom. We had installed a towel bar below the window and instead of holding our towels, it was holding the train from the curtain.

I basically, measured the height inside the window frame and added a generous seam allowance. Then because the lining material is so slippery, I folded up the bottom, pinned and stitched and then did it again.

I also had to make a pleat in the center of the lining because it was not the same width as the main fabric. I suppose this didn't matter because on the original panel the two fabrics were only joined at the top and down the sides, not at the bottom.

Pretty nice, eh?

Next, I used the remaining length of curtain and split it into 2 pieces for our small basement windows that have been in need of coverings too (especially one that is in our basement bathroom). We also used the tension rods for those windows so that the curtains are contained in the frame.

For the top casing, I made it a little longer and then stitched a line through about an inch from the top so it would ruffle above the rod.

This also made it so it didn't have to be shoved all the way to the top of the frame to cover the whole window. Doesn't it look cute?

For the bathroom, fold sew repeat ;) and done!

So nice to have that crossed off my to do list FINALLY!

Freezer Stencil Shirt and Layered Dress-Up Skirt

2011-10-16T00:06:00.000-05:00

I'm so excited! I know its been a long time since my last post but usually when I come back, I don't have any fun projects to share! This time, I have been a crafting MACHINE! I can't share all of the goodies just yet because I want the recipients to see them first when they receive them! But, this one I has already been received so let's check it out!

I knew I wanted to do a freezer stencil shirt with the bday girl's first initial and then I was thinking dress up... sooooo, I started with the shirt.

I had just gotten a pack of plain white tshirts but they were really boxy, not girly at all, so after I did the stencil I grabbed a cute xs old navy shirt in Evie's garage sale totes (having all those different sizes sure comes in handy!), turned the white tshirt inside out, laid it on top and cut, cut, cut! I moved the sleeves in, made them smaller and narrowed the sides and shortened it a tad. This was one of the times that I was super glad that a couple years ago for my birthday/mother's day the hubby got me a serger! I serged up all the seams and then used my double needle that came with my sewing machine to do the bottom hem. I got brave enough to try the double needle for the first time after seeing Ashley's tips here. The one that came with my machine was not very wide, so I got a 4.0/75 at the fabric store today for the next time.

Also, I appologize that I apparently didn't take very great photos of the steps...

For the skirt, I had some different dressy fabric remnants a friend had given me so, I used them to make a layered ruffly skirt. For the skirt, I just took about 3x the waist measurement so it would gather more and be fuller, then I think the longest layer was around 14 inches and then the middle layer (tulle) was a few inches shorter and the pink fabric (?) was just barely shorter than that. I serged the fabrics together and folded it over about an inch for the waist and I serged the bottom of all the layers too. I also had some fun pink ribbon/embellishment that I attached to the tulle layer to make it fun!

Ta DA!

Then, I had some more time with it... and thought it just needed something more, so I searched through all my stuff and found some lace and pink biased tape so after that, I felt like it was done!

And one final touch :) hand painted labels

And, the sweet girl <3 we've been having some beautiful weather, though this week its getting a bit cooler

And, D got the Christmas lights put up too, so now just have to try to wait...

So, what do you think? It was for the 6 year old daughter of the couple who host our church community group. I gave it to her the night we had our group when the kiddos (who are mostly little girls) spend most of the evening playing dress up, and that night "L" wore it first, then the other gal who is about the same age, "M", came down wearing the whole thing too. I think that means they like it :)

The Reveal!

2011-09-19T16:28:00.001-05:00

Are you just bursting with excitement and anticipation? I KNEW it! Remember this fabric from the previous post?

I told you when I picked it up that I had an idea for a refashion. My idea was to make matching mommy, Evie pj pants! Cute, right? Well, I had made some toddler pants before but I never really loved how they turned out... then earlier this year I found this tutorial from Dana at the awesome/inspiring blog MADE. (If you've never visited her blog, I highly recommend it!) When I found her tutorial on how to make your own pattern and steps for sewing some cute kid pants that look store bought, I thought "hey, now that looks pretty simple", so I jumped right in and made a pair. Ok, that's totally a BIG LIE! I think originally, I found the tutorial back at the beginning of summer and was going to do the shorts version... you know, for summer. I had already drawn up the patterns for the pants and for long shorts (because they look so stinkin' cute on Evie) and a few days ago, I pulled out the pj set, tried the bottoms on me which fit besides being "high waters" (that's Iowa lingo for short pants) and then set about fitting the pattern pieces on the shirt for Evie's pants. Because this is a woman's medium set, I had to go with the long short pattern and decided to make them a bit longer - capri length - I would add a ruffle at the bottom in a complimenting color. I also, figured that since my pants are too short anyways, that for another project I will shorten them and add a ruffle as well for the matching set I was hoping for originally. Eventually ;)
The pants came together really quickly. It started to slow down a bit when I got into figuring out how I wanted to do the ruffle at the bottom. I chose red cotton and cut strips that were about 2x as wide as the bottom of the leg to be able to ruffle. They were also twice as tall as I wanted so I could fold them over (you could also just do a hem on the bottom and use less fabric). Then, I decided to pleat them instead of gathering the ruffle (truth be told, I just don't like gathering fabric). After making the fabric into tubes I measured out how much extra I had, about 4 inches flat (or 8 inches total) and divided it into 8 different pleats of about an inch each, then pinned and did a basting stitch to hold it in place so I could pin and sew it to the leg, then I topstitched it down.

Done, right? Well, maybe not... I have a bunch of 24 month long sleeve carters onsies that I had gotten when Evie was 2 to make cute shirts for her... yeah, didn't get done. So, after making such cute jammie pants, I thought "these need a cute shirt to match, then she'll have a set!" I grabbed one of the onsies tried it on her (sadly they still fit even though she is going to be 4 in less than 5 months, they are actually way longer than her torso) marked the length and then hacked it off with my rotary cutter. Then after a couple tries got a bottom hem done that matches the sleeve hems. Though, next time I am going to use a double needle... I found this tutorial for using double needles for knit fabric too late this time! My original idea was to do an applique with some of the frog fabric and maybe a heart from the red fabric, but after cutting them out and trying to get them arranged on the shirt, I just thought they looked ~~stupid~~ ok, so we don't use that word, but they looked bad. Definitely not like something I would pay money for. So, back to the drawing board. Then, I thought what about painting something on the shirt to match? I drew up a larger image of the frog's head as decided by myself and my husband then I jumped on the computer and did some searches for using acrylic paint on fabric and found that it is generally said that it will be stiff and crack unless you use a fabric tempering medium to mix in... well, I am on a tight budget so was hoping to use things I already have. I have a variety of "puffy fabric paint" and some craft acrylic paint too. I didn't have the green in the fabric paint so I decided to do a test run on a scrap t-shirt of white puff paint mixed with green craft paint... it worked :)

that little oval is the applique I was going to put on the shirt

Next, I traced the outline on the onsie t-shirt with a fabric marker and my laptop screen as a tracing table.

Then with a sheet of paper underneath to prevent the layers sticking together in case the paint bleeds through, I mixed up my paint and started filling in the lines. (I have to say, this was a pretty fun process, even though it took way longer than needed because I could just sit with my husband while he watched the football game instead of being on the sewing machine and it made me feel really creative, not just like I was copying someone else's idea but that I was actually coming up with something on my own! though as a disclaimer, I know I am not the only one to ever do this, just that I didn't use anyone else's ideas).

Pretty cute, no? Yes :) So, the next morning, I show this to Evie. The conversation goes something like this:

Me: "What do you think?"

Evie: "Good."

Me: "What do you think of it with the pants?"

Evie: looks it over, then "it needs legs. It's supposed to match those ones (on the pants)"

Me: wishing I hadn't drawn attention to it "so I need to paint a body on it too?"

Evie: "yes"

Me: back to the drawing board. Literally.

So just when I thought I was done... my "customer" lets me know otherwise. I guess I should have consulted her in the first place.

Done. And, done!

This project has given me a new motivation to get some of the projects done that I have had lining up all year, so hopefully you will be seeing more postings like this one.

This is what happens when I say "strike a pose" oh, goodness!

I am so excited!

2011-09-18T00:39:00.000-05:00

I finally completed an entire project! It seems like lately, I just have a bunch of partially done sewing projects. Sometimes because things aren't going like I want them to, sometimes because it gets to unknown territory and my lack of confidence keeps me from moving ahead. Whatever the reason, it leaves me feeling frustrated and unable to create cute homemade items that don't necessarily look homemade but like something that someone would actually pay money for. Anyhow, I still have to get the girly to model the entire outfit so I can get pictures to post but I will give you a sneak peak at what I started with before the refashion took place.

Isn't this froggy fabric cute? I saw this set for $1 at a garage sale early this summer and though the pants are usually too short for me, I thought maybe I could do a refashion. I just want to make a note that I am really proud of myself for getting a refashion done the same year I bought the fabric :) I am also pretty excited that I went a different direction with part of it than originally planned too! I can't wait to share it with you!

So, do you have any guesses what I did with it?

I love a good deal! (or I'm a cheapskate!)

2011-08-27T18:36:00.000-05:00

I have never been one to (want to) pay full price for clothes. I think it comes partly from growing up in a blue collar family of 6 and partly from being super poor in college because I hadn't been very wise in my finances. I just don't like to spend money. And I have never been a huge fan of shopping (which definitely shows in my wardrobe). Anyhow, after Evie was born and I was staying a home with her, I decided to try garage sale shopping when they started the spring after she was born. I will tell you that Ankeny has some killer sales with nice clothes at really cheap prices (they have really overpriced ones too). It didn't take me long to be addicted to getting great deals! Every week I would plan ahead searching Craigslist for Ankeny garage sales, got my list all together with directions and a game plan then set out with my little passenger in search of great deals. It became my way of "creating" more money for us by not spending so much on her clothes. Truth be told, a lot of the time I became more attached to the 2nd hand clothes than to the brand new ones I did buy. I just don't see the point of buying brand new clothes that will either get ruined or she will only wear once. Even Evie got into the spirit of finding good deals and the summer after she turned 1 she started finding items that she wanted me to buy for her too :) There was a tiny baby she found for 10 cents and a pull behind fisher price puppy for 50 cents and then people started giving her things that she found to keep herself busy while I browsed because "she was so cute!" My husband used to joke that I should be a personal garage sale shopper for people because I found such great stuff :)

My most recent venture today was pretty small because it is getting to the end of the season but I did find a Gap down winter jacket for $5! And a pair of classic teva sandals for $1 and a couple other pieces for 50 cents each.

So we are pretty set for the next size. I have 2 tubs of 4t clothes from garage sales, plus the coat and a jean jacket and shoes (including some pink low top converse in perfect shape, a couple pairs of cloth mary janes, classic crocs and mary jane crocs). There are like 6 stacks of long sleeve shirts, then holiday shirts for Halloween/Christmas, jeans, colored corderoys, sweaters, sweatshirst, skirts and dresses, tights, knit pants. One of my favorites is an adorable purple sweater dress <3 hopefully I can get her to wear some dresses this year!

I also have a partial tub of 4T summer clothes (in the background) and I have to admit there are probably close to 10 swim suits in there... but at 50 cents a piece for new looking suits I had trouble turning them down :) Then I also have a tub full of 5T/6/xs stuff that was just too great of a deal and too cute to pass up! Seriously, old navy 5slim girlfriend jeans for 50 cents? Um, yes please!

This summer I have also had fun shopping for my sis-in-law who is due with her 3rd baby at the end of September (she has 2 boys already). After we found out it was a girl (yay!) I started keeping my eye out for good deals, because they live in Washington and we either have to take them with us when we go visit (hopefully) in October or ship them. Boy, did I find some ~~good~~ great deals! All this for less than $25! There are 3 jammies, 2 sleep sacks, 6 2 pc outfits, 2 4pc outfits, 8 pairs knit pants, 12 onsies, hooded zip up sweater, 6 shirts, 1 dress, insulated bib overalls, jeanskirt overall, pink polka dot sweater vest, a load of itty bitty socks, soft purple blanket, a few burp cloths, 2 or 3 pairs of jeans, 4 bibs, 4 tiny pairs of shoes, haba wood ring rattle, old navy black puffy vest (new looking for 50 cents!), camo columbia fleece pullover (also 50 cents) and some Cars jammies. The last 3 are for our nephews but for 1.25 total I couldn't resist! Now, the trick will be getting everything out to Washington! My mother in law is going out right before the sheduled c-section so I might try to send some with her if she has room. Then we are waiting to see if we can afford to go out but hoping to go late October. Paying for the 3rd ticket for Evie really adds up! But we wouldn't have to pay for a place to stay which helps ;)

A day at the beach... er, I mean park

2011-08-25T20:23:00.000-05:00

I meant to post the pics from this sooner but I was hoping our desktop computer would be fixed sooner (its still in the shop) so I wouldn't have to use our ancient laptop.

Last week we went to a park to meet up with some moms from my Titus2 womens group from church since we took the summer off. It made me excited for our regular meetings to start again after Labor Day. It was a couple of gals from this group that really helped me out by praying for me and sending me Bible verses to meditate on when I was so anxious about leaving Evie for our Bahamas trip back in April. I don't know what I would have done without their counsel. Evie just loves any time she can get together with other kids too so she looks forward to the meetings as much as I do!

with her buddy Zack, whose mommy is Kristy from Fried Kristy

when it was time to go feed the geese and ducks, Evie grabbed Zack's hand and shockingly, instead of pulling away, he just readjusted it and ran off with her (so persistence DOES pay off)

up close and personal

just got her finger nibbled

apparently, she climbs trees

not too far off the ground... yet

Trainland USA

2011-08-21T20:54:00.000-05:00

Today started out like most Sundays in our house, we woke up went to church, had some lunch at our favorite mexican restaurant, took a lovely nap.... then woke up and had a surprise visit from Grandpa Bob and Grandma Joyce on the Harley. They also had a little t-shirt for Evie from Trainland USA, where they had stopped out on their scenic drive to check it out before our trip originally planned for Wednesday of this week. Then, they figured since they were so close, why don't they just swing on over and deliver the shirt :) Well, since it was just after 2pm and they are open until 6pm why don't we all just head over today? Okay, I think we will! It was neat and fun, although not something I would do regularly, and now we have been there, done that, so to speak. Evie's favorite part was a coin operated choo choo ;)

Thanks Grandpa and Grandma!

Chalk Drawings, Harvesting and Homemade Pie Filling

2011-08-20T00:02:00.000-05:00

It has been a long, crazy, stressful last month here. We've had injury, illness, our computer decided to die... so thankful we had GeekSquad Black Tie Protection on it because the motherboard was done for. So it got sent off to be fixed and we are making due with our not so smart phones and our crippled laptop. Both are desperately in need of replacing. Also, in the middle of it all, I had my grandmother come stay with us for 4 days and then at the beginning of this week D had a work function over in Cedar Rapids, so Evie and I tagged along and went to my parents while he was "working". Then, just to make sure we weren't bored we decided to rearrange our basement living room/computer/sewing/workout space.

Now, on to the good stuff!

Chalk drawing with Evie turned into Evie telling me what to draw and picking out the colors. And its probably just me, but I love this "family portrait"

Then, the artist in me clawed its way out and I spent a good portion of the time doing this and it turned out pretty good. Then, it rained later that day. Boooo!

Homemade pie filling, cherry on the left and rhubarb(from my patch) on the right. Basic recipe would be about 2 1/2 c of rhubarb or 1 sm bag of frozen pie cherries (about 2-3 cups I think), mix together 1 cup sugar with 5 tablespoons of flour then mix into fruit and cook on low heat with lid on stirring often to keep sugar from burning until liquid from fruit mixes with sugar/flour and thickens... its not an exact science :)

lavendar from my herb garden

trial run of hand pies made from uncooked tortillas

almost forgot to take a picture before they were gone! it turned out okay with the tortilla, i think it was just so flat pressed that it didn't have any of the normal flakiness of regular pie crust even though it was basically the same ingredients. they were still yummy though :)

my rhubarb is getting to the end of the season so it is drier and a lot less sweet (even for rhubarb) but it still is yummy with the right amount of sugar ;) and I don't want to waste it so I have started slowly harvesting it, cleaning, cutting and freezing it

To make it easier to use out of the freezer, I lay the pieces out on foil on a cookie sheet in the freezer till frozen and then put in freezer bags.

Oh! For Pete's Sake!

2011-06-25T00:02:00.000-05:00

Seriously! What is the matter with me?! I can't seem to get this blog running to save my life... but then again, I have always had a problem with consistency in, well lets just say, a lot of areas. One week (or day) I've got everything under control and my "plan" is going perfectly. Then the next, I feel like I am barely treading water! I read so many blogs that have such gifted authors and think "I wish I could write like that or make people laugh like that". Maybe the problem really is that I want to be one of those amazing blogger moms that sews every day or at least close to it and then blogs about it but I just can't seem to get it together. So, that's my whine for the moment. And you know what? I feel a little better :)

I am currently almost through week 3 of the Insanity 60 day workout program, which I talked more about here. I am a tad frustrated though because even though I am DEFINITELY in much better shape than when I started, I have not had the weight just falling off. (As a disclaimer though, I should mention that I really am not following any sort of "diet" plan and do occassionally have ~~some~~ a pint of Ben and Jerry's or make a ginormous batch of cookie dough trying out a recipe of Dana's from Made...)

And now for some pictures...

"Big Baby" (and as a disclaimer she named it this before Toy Story 3 came out) riding a horse, and when she saw me taking the picture she placed the little grey horse in the foreground :)

Ky and Evie watching the tractor mow

she loves babies

she still will go in the baby swings so she can get underdogs

snuggling with Uncle Jake watching a movie

cousin Violet and Evie hanging out at Grandpa and Grandma's

D and my younger brother helping my parents with the wood splitting

INSANITY!

2011-06-09T00:04:00.001-05:00

I meant to post about this ~~yesterday~~ Monday but I forgot until ~~this morning~~ Tuesday, and then I just didn't have time until (what is today? Wednesday?!) ok, yeah, Wednesday. Night. Late night. So, here you go...

After the reality of swimsuit season set in, seeing that we have been at the pool at least every other day since it opened, I decided that I needed to get busy and do something to feel better about my "baby fat". It has been an up and down battle since Evie was born over 3 years ago. Within a week of her birth, I got down to about 5 lbs more than my weight right when I got pregnant (that means I lost 25 lbs in about 4 days... but then...) But from there it went back up as I didn't find time to workout with a newborn. And now I am about 15 lbs up from that and kind of fluctuated a bit but not really getting much higher. The real problem is that my prepregnancy weight was about 10 lbs higher than I would have liked so now I find myself 30 lbs from my ideal weight and a closet with the clothes I am "going to fit back into" all shoved to the back. So, back to this post. I had looked into the extreme body shaping type programs that are offered in my area thinking that maybe having the accountability of going to a class and paying a significant amount of money for it might keep me in check, but alas they are 2 weeks into the current session and I don't want to wait another 6 to 8 weeks to start doing something. So, I pulled out my Insanity workout DVDs that I had ordered a while back and decided I was going to go for it! So, Monday, I got up did my before weight, measurements and even *yikes!* pictures and then did the day 1 workout - the Fit Test. The Fit Test is about 25 minutes long with warm up and cool down and it is hard! Most of the "test" part of it, I was pushing myself as hard as I could and was gasping for air!
Tuesday when I got out of bed, I was quites sore from pushing myself and using muscles that, let's just say it, don't get used very often! But I powered through my day 2 workout that was about 41 minutes long and felt great! Sweat pouring off every part of me by midway through the warm up!
Wednesday... well, that was another level of sore with some added stiffness in my calf area that made navigating the stairway a bit more treacherous than normal :) After walking around a bit, I started to loosen up (some) and so again headed down to my "insane" workout. And as I write the rest of this post, I am still really sore. Earlier today, I asked D if he remembered how long it took before the stiff type soreness went away. He didn't, so I don't know how long this will last.

You know, I should just take a minute to do a mini-disclaimer on myself and my ideal workout, etc... this workout is not for everyone - it says that before every workout begins. But, I really like a workout that seems hard to get through, I want to know that the time I have to put into working out is getting me the biggest bang for my buck. I like the challenge of being able to push myself harder every time I do a workout and still feel challenged by it and like it was a hard as the first time I did it. Insanity is that type of workout. Now, I have to say that I also love Billy Blanks and my trusty ol' Tae Bo Live Advanced VHS tapes (not available on DVD, I have looked) but with those workouts you kind of reach a plateau where you don't really get as much out of it once you achieve a certain level of fitness. But, I still love them <3

Ok, so where was I? Somewhere in the middle of pain and week 1 in my 60 day (really its 9 weeks of 6 workouts a week, so 62 days from start to end) Insanity challenge. I know I don't have a lot of readers but I thought it might help me to have my goal and some points along the way actually written down for me (and others) to see. So here's the plan. After this, I am going to update every time I do the Fit Test and at halfway and the end when I recheck my measurements and weight giving the amount lost. Now, somewhere up above I said that I was about 30 pounds from my "ideal" weight. My goal for this 60 day session is to lose around 18 pounds which would put me back at my prepregnancy weight. Along with that, I am hoping to go down 2 pants sizes and hopefully fit into some of the jeans I wore at the beginning of my pregnancy. I know "stuff" shifts around during pregnancy so I don't know what to expect my body shape to be when I get to that weight. Then, if all goes well, I am going to do another round and hopefully get close to my ideal weight (which I will continue to evaluate as I lose - who knows, it may be more or less). So, there you have it...

Ready? Set? GO!

Monday 6/5 Fit Test 1
1. Switch Kicks - 122*
2. Power Jacks - 59
3. Power Knees - 109
4. Power Jumps - 46 hello plyo*
5. Globe Jumps - 10 rotations consisting of 4 jumps each
6. Suicide Jumps - 12*
7. Push-up Jacks - 23 but I need to work on going deeper in my pushup
8. Low Plank Oblique - 64

the ones I have marked with an * I ~~hate~~ feel the most challenged by

Thank Goodness for Our Pool Pass!

2011-06-06T21:01:00.000-05:00

So it has been wicked hot here in the midwest! Today it was 95 before the heat index which I thought I heard pushed it up over 100! But we didn't notice that much because Evie and I spent the afternoon at the pool :) We have been "swimming" 4 or 5 times already since the pool opened the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. We have 2 aquatic centers here now. The older one has a beach entry for the little ones but then is only separated from the deeper waters by ropes. It has a toddler/kid friendly slide and fountains plus a splash park for when they are doing pool checks every hour. The newer one has a separate kid pool area with 3 different degrees of slides for the younger ones and more fountains and a huge bucket that dumps when it gets full. It also has a lazy river which I took Evie on yesterday when we went and she LOVES it! The rest is like a mini waterpark with quite a few different slides but who cares since I only get to do what Evie does ;)

So, I decided that I wanted to get a pool pass and get Evie to the water a lot this summer for a couple of reasons.

1. so that we would spend more time doing things outside (even when it is horribly hot like it gets here in Iowa) and,

2. so that she would get more acclimated to the water and maybe not be afraid to go under all the way by the end of the summer.

I didn't realize that I cared about this at all until towards the end of last summer when we went swimming with some friends and Evie's little buddy was diving under and trying to swim. Evie wasn't even wanting to jump off the edge of the pool to me. I didn't like that she was that afraid of getting her head wet and wanted to get her used to being around the water before she got old enough to really be afraid.

So back to this year... so far each time, she has not wanted to go down any of the slides and would not jump to either D or myself from the edge. She likes going in the deeper water and holding on to the edge or us and today while we were over there something happened... she watched as a boy a little bigger than her jumped to what appeared to be his older sister and she caught him! Evie looked at me and said "did you see that? she has her arms out and caught him!" I guess in that moment, something clicked and then she decided she wanted to give it a try after all. So, I was instructed to stand basically at the edge with my arms raised up to catch her. She jumped. I caught her. She thought it was great! So little by little she instructed me to back up a teensy bit until I was about 3-4 feet from the edge. She continued to jump and jump and jump, all the while having a fabulous time! Her face was even going in a little some of the times and she wasn't concerned in the least! BREAKTHROUGH! Then, not only was she jumping to me, she started getting creative! She did spinning jumps and dive-ish jumps, and cannonball jumps! We did that for 20-30 minutes before we had to get out! I was so proud of her and it reminded me of what my mom had said to me this weekend. She told me that by the end of the summer I was going to be wondering what I had been so worried about :) Hmmm, should I be surprised that she was right already? I had been so concerned because my daring daughter was not at all daring in the water, till today! So lesson learned, now I just have to remember that ha ha! I am so excited to see what the rest of the summer brings!

Memorial Weekend

2011-06-01T23:09:00.000-05:00

I think this was the first Memorial Day weekend in quite a while that we didn't have some sort of travel plans. So we just took it a day at a time and spent some good time together a a family and even with our neighbors.

We had to stop while we were out running around to watch a goose family having an afternoon snack. If you haven't heard before, Evie is completely obsessed with families of all sorts. Animals, people, rocks, I cringe to say it, but also her poops... yes, even those get titled as "mommy", "baby", or "daddy" based on size. She wants EVERYTHING to have a mommy, daddy and at least one baby.

Moving on... Saturday night, we (meaning D) lugged our firebowl to the grass circle in the middle of the cul de sac beside our house. We started at around 7 ish I think with us, and our neighbors with 4 boys 5, 4, 3, and 1 year old. Evie calls them "the kids". "Mom, the kids are outside. I want to go play with the kids." You get the picture :) Then as the night progresses most of the neighbors in that circle were sitting out with us. They roasted marshmallows and were offering some to Evie (who I had told that they had too much sugar for her) so she boldly replies, "No thanks, THEY HAVE TOO MUCH SUGAR." Hello, mortified mom. But, she didn't even whine a little bit about it, she just went on the same as she had. Sooooo, I remembered I had the fixin's for gluten free, no high fructose corn sugar or artificial stuff, smores. These are made with gf graham crackers, ricemallow, and vegan chocolate chips. She was in heaven! Great first smores experience for her (and me)!

Here she is with "the biggest kid" aka Atticus :) He is her fave because he interacts with her the most and likes hugs, which she attempts to bestow on all her friends. After it became rediculously late for the kiddos, most had trickled in to bed, but Evie was of course still trying to be social. It was after midnight when she got to bed and we had just left the firebowl with the neighbors who were still up.

The next day we all took naps after church... Evie was yawning on the way to church. Then we decided to have a fire in our driveway instead so it wouldn't go quite so late. This time, we got the grill out too and did some hotdogs (we love Applegate Farms all beef and Trader Joes mini all beef hotdogs are a favorite of Evie's) and had chips and "the kids'" mom Ruthie made some guacamole, yum! It was a much earlier night to bed, though still late. I was very glad that we had Monday to recuperate some before D had to go back to work.

What's going on around here?

2011-06-01T00:04:00.002-05:00

The Friday before Mother's Day, I got to go spend some time with my mom while Evie and D went fishing (her first time!) Doesn't she make an adorable little fisher? Say yes :) She got her princess pink fishing pole from Uncle Drew for her birthday in February so we used it for Harley (our cat) fishing till now!

Apparently there were A LOT of rocks tossed in the water while there... I have heard that is a good way to get fish to bite ;) D texted me at one time to tell me that Evie said "Daddy, I want to go where the fishies like us" when they weren't getting any bites!

(this picture was from a later date, taken at a pond by our house. D got a fish on the line and let Evie reel it in. BIG 6 inch bass haha)

Anyhow, back to my day with my mom. We had been planning it for a little while but it happened that her Uncle Samuel passed away two days before so we did a little gardening in my mom's garden and then traveled to Amish/Mennonite country to go to the visitation and spend some time with that part of the family (Uncle Samuel was my grandpa's sister's husband...) I actually got to take Evie to see my Mennonite relatives last May. Samuel played the harmonica for us and Evie was a hit as usual :) In the pic below Samuel is the guy at the far end of the table opposite the gal in the bright blue shirt.

This is my mom's cousin Dan (Samuel's son - I think there are 9 kids all together!) Evie had been eying his pedal tractor when we toured the house so he got it out for her to ride around :) His wife is Edie... LOVE her!

Then of course before we left, Evie had to give the big Andy doll a hug and kiss :)

As soon as you get close, you start seeing lots of these. We met some awesome Amish folks and I had a lot of fun talking with extended family that I don't see often.

I saw this sign as we were leaving the area... had to take a picture :)

Then a couple weekends ago we had our friend Matt and his son Dawson over for supper. Dawson is 3 months older than Evie and so they have been buddies as long as they remember!

This is Dawson and Evie 2 days after she was born... on Valentine's Day 2008! Neither was very happy about being put down so we could take a picture of how much bigger 3 month old Dawson was than peanut Evie :)

And, I had to throw in a picture of our kookie cat Harley Davidson (named for his rumbling purr he had even as a fist sized kitten) He often sleeps on his back like this and when its too bright he covers his face with his paw... for dramatic effect I believe!

This is Evie's new set of wheels. A craigslist find of mine since I refused to pay almost $300 for one... she has had it for about a week now and I have to say that her driving has improved exponetially. When we first got it she ran into one of our baby evergreen trees around the house, backed into my peony bush, and NEVER looked in the direction she was going... but ALWAYS had a huge smile on her face! She now is quite good at backing it out of the garage without hitting anything and pulls in back into the garage to her temporary parking spot while D can't get past our pile of landscaping rocks... at full speed!

This was a really fun night. I was working on the yard and Evie and D got out the chalk. He started by tracing around her which she loves - she has always been a fan of "draw my hand" on paper, so lifesize was even better. She is the little upside down outline next to where she is standing in the pic, then she had D lay down and he is the blobby on the right side of the drive right next to her. When she drew his eyes she told him "Daddy, you have the biggest eyes in the west!" I think that was a compliment :) Then I was beckoned from my yardwork and became the even bigger blobby on the left (that will teach me to be in snow angel pose)! She was getting ready to add Stinky Baby to the blob family as the pic was taken.

This is my favorite! Because I am a girl, I get eyelashes. Just check out those long lashes!

Hmmmm, just realizing that I don't have any of our Memorial Day pics on here yet... I will try to remedy that!

Runaway Life!

2011-05-26T17:33:00.001-05:00

Man! I feel like life is running away from me right now. I have so many things on my "to do" list that it makes my head spin! Some of those things have been on there for a really long time too!

We have been working on our lawn a lot when the weather permits. So far, we have heavily overseeded to try to choke out some of the weeds with new grass. I have spent numerous hours pulling our dandelions after we were unable to find a good non toxic solution for killing the weeds. We even looked into the organic and all natural but the natural ingredients still warned against tissue damage if it came in contact with skin/eyes :( And then we also FINALLY ordered river rock and laid our landscape fabric and rock in the areas next to our house that we had plants.

We still have a ton (literally!) of rocks left and so we are going to put some under our back deck and try adding some more to the sides as they settle a bit. I also need to get some organic garden soil to put in my giant planters for my tomato plants.

The big project inside has been working on the bedrooms. The wood sealer they used when our house was built didn't hold up to any water exposure so I need to reseal all the woodwork in the house basically and have been doing some as we painted the guest bathroom and master bathroom upstairs. We also got rid of Evie's baby bedroom furniture and are looking for new since we are moving her into a bigger bed. I started with her bedroom so she got moved into the guest room and has been sleeping on the queen size bed in there for now. Then after moving her we decided that since that room is a little bigger and her previous room had the bigger closet we would switch her and have the guest room in her old room, then the closet would be bigger for storage. So I have to repaint the walls with a coat of paint to freshen them up and then after the fumes air out we will move her back to that room and then we will repaint the guest room for her... as of now she has been telling us she wants a really dark pink or red, uh oh! Then get her a new bed and dresser, then lastly I will work on our bedroom...

In the midst of all this craziness I have really been wanting to get some sewing done, but can't seem to find enough time all together. So tonight, I decided I was going to just at least start something... hopefully that means that I will have some finished project pics soon!

Bahamas! A Picture Post

2011-04-27T10:36:00.000-05:00

Here are ~~some~~ a lot of pictures from our recent trip to the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas. It was beautiful and somewhere that we probably would never have gone at our own expense (the least expensive room rate was about $400 per night and this is not an all inclusive type place so everthing was pricey). We were there for 4 nights which was just right. We were ready to come home at the end, especially since Evie was back here with grandma and grandpas. She did awesome too - no separation anxiety at all!

I Am The Queen of Craigslist! (aka, I got the BEST deal EVER!)

2011-04-26T19:09:00.001-05:00

Miss Evie has been talking a lot lately about wanting a dollhouse and doll family. There was one conversation that went something like this:

Evie: I want a neighborhood of dollhouses

Me: They take up a lot of room so we would have to get rid of some of your toys

Evie: we can get rid of ALL of my toys

Me: you would let me get rid of all of your toys if you got a neighborhood of dollhouses?

Evie: yes

Needless to say, we won't be getting a whole neighborhood of dollhouses but I was excited to start looking for what to get for her and maybe do it for Christmas. I was really wanting to get a wood one instead of plastic so I started looking at Melissa and Doug and Plan Toys for starters to see prices and options. Here are some of my favorites!

Plan Toys Terrace Dollhouse without furniture $170

Plan Toys Green Dollhouse $190 w/out furnishings or $240 furnished

And my list could go on and on! There are so many adorable dollhouses available if you are willing to spend the money. Once you have the dollhouse, the room sets or doll sets are all between $15 and $20 on average so you can really put some money into it! Just look at the cute little sets!

Well, lets just say that wood dollhouses are not cheap! And if I'm anything, its frugal, so it is quite painful for me to pay full price for anything, especially when that means over $100 before any dolls or furnishings! So, I went to my trusty Amazon.com and did my search there... it was better but still a lot more than I would prefer to pay. So on a whim, I did a search for dollhouse in Craigslist...

Most of the listings were for the plastic ones, which I didn't eliminate right away but then I found one that was almost 3 weeks old and just said "make an offer" with a picture like this:

I sent an email to see if it was still available and then started trying to find out which brand it was and how much it cost new... I was stuck because I only found the Melissa and Doug furnished house

and this Plan Toys My First Dollhouse

But, there was just something different about the house design... I had gotten to the point that I was thinking it might have been an older year model and then somehow a search on Amazon.com brought up some new wood dollhouse accessories and so I went looking and found the exact house! Its Ryan's Room brand. I had never even heard of it! Well, it retails for $135.99 and I saw it as low as about $88 on amazon. During this time I had gotten an email back saying they still had the dollhouse, and to please make an offer to get it out of her house! So, I made an offer of $10 and I totally thought she would say she didn't want to go that low (I know I wouldn't have!) but to my surprise, she said that was fine and what day could I pick it up!
So that right there was just a crazy amazing deal, but my story is not over yet ;)
Well, Monday night we drove down to pick it up and as we are going to the garage she says "Oh and I found another piece... it is 3 levels now." Um, WHAT?! She had forgotten this piece below:

This add on piece with garage and more rooms and stairs retails for 69.99 so I was thinking, great she's leading up to telling me she wants more money for it... so I ask if $10 is still okay and she says yes, just get it out of my house. YIPPEE! But I totally understand too, because no lie, this thing is HUGE! All stacked up it is almost 3 feet tall and over 2 and 1/2 feet wide! Just look!

So, for now Evie doesn't know about it and I managed to hide it in the garage because it does need aired out a bit and wiped down from being stored. I am wrestling between giving it to her right away or TRYING to wait until Christmas (yes, I know that is 8 months away) and stocking up on the dolls and furnishings bit by bit until then...

Happy Earth Day and FREE coffee!

2011-04-22T15:13:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note to let you know (if you didn't already) that for today if you take a reusable cup in to Starbucks you can get a free brewed coffee, tea, or iced tea. Happy Earth Day!

I surprised my husband at work and delivered a bold roast to him at lunch time!

Passport Photos

2011-04-17T21:40:00.001-05:00

So after we got our passports for our Bahamas trip (which we just got back from - more about that later) we decided to get a passport for Evie too. Have you ever tried to take a picture of a 3 year old and told them NOT to smile? Yeah, kinda goes against everything you have taught them to that point :)

I think this is the one we ended up using.

Oh, and if you don't want to pay a lot for your passport pic, we used the website http://www.epassportphoto.com/ and printed off the pic on our printer, so much cheaper.

Lawn and Garden Show and Eco Friendly Jewelry

2011-03-20T00:17:00.000-05:00

We have so many different projects that we have had on one "to do" list or another for a few years now. Things like getting quotes for fences and a patio and FINALLY putting river rock in the landscaping around our house. So as we were talking about it after breakfast, I made a comment that I wish there was a home show so we could go and then get a "home show" discount. Come to find out... the Lawn and Garden Show was going on down in Des Moines at the fair grounds. So, we pack up and head out.

As, we were walking to the building, Evie points to a building sign and says, "there it is, is says FA-lau-EHRS. Flowers." Um, no, it says 'Des Moines Register'. She has been so funny lately, sounding out letter sounds in words. On the way into the parking lot we have this conversation,

Evie: "L starts with slide" (she says it backwards, so cute!),
Me: "No, slide does not start with L, it starts with the letter that says SSSSSSSS. Do you know what letter says, ssssss?"
E: "Snake, says ssssss."
Me: "Yes, but what letter is that?"
E: "S"

Me: "YES!"(almost jumping in my seat) Then we went through L, I, and D, and she got them all! Then I wasn't sure how to prompt her for the E at the end and the little smartypants says all of a sudden, "Is there any thing more?" Like she knew that there was another letter... anyways, I thought it was really neat to see her get it! I LOVE it!

There was only one fence place and one place that did patios... it seemed a lot smaller than normal and there were a few really unexpected vendors there. One that was pretty neat was Terra Natural Designs, this is a newer website and so is still in development. The old website that has a lot more pictures is here. The beads of the necklace are made from hard seeds found in the Amazon called Tagua or Vegetable Ivory. It is a renewable natural material that they sand and polish and can also color using natural plant pigments.

The green necklace/earring set below I got for half price (gotta love a great deal) and the little brown beads are acai seeds. The necklace can be worn long or doubled...

Then, we had a weak moment and Evie got to pick out a bracelet to get... and she picked the one below. She loves it. I think it looks like little carrot pieces.

Another necklace style I really liked is shown here.

SO, to recap... not a lot of landscaping progress, BUT, I got some awesome jewelry!

Quilt Tree

2011-03-19T21:31:00.000-05:00

Last week in the mail I got a letter from the grandma of a friend and when I opened it, this is what I found...

With it were two different purple squares (the top two). The bottom two are the ones that I managed to find in my stash, thanks to my sis in law passing on some of her grandma's fabrics. So, I am to pass them on to the first person in the letter and 4 people I know. I have thought of 2 or 3 and am having a hard time coming up with more... soooo, if you read this and would like me to include you please comment with your email (I won't publish it) and I will get in touch with you.

I will keep you all posted on how things progress... some day, maybe I will have a quilt. Or quilt top. I hope... someday :)

Maybe.

Day of Green!

2011-03-18T22:51:00.000-05:00

So, I thought we would check out the St. Patty's Day parade in downtown Des Moines this year. So after we donned our green (Stinky Baby too), we headed down to find a spot.

This was our little photo shoot to get a pic of her green...

We got there not quite half an hour early and it was packed! We managed to squeeze in behind some super nice people who let Evie sit next to them on the curb and me sit behind her in one of their chairs!

Hanging out, waiting for it to begin. Note how everyone is gathered nicely at the curb... just wait.

Moving out a bit and being surrounded by bigger kids.

Now the grandmas move in too. They actually brought their grandkids up and then stood right in front of Evie who at the time was still hanging back by the curb. I let her venture up for a while...

The madness continues. No, the parade is not over, these people are just migrating further and further into the street. They were all the way to the center line and still creeping - parade drivers tried with no avail to move them back quite a few times...

Really?

Still, during the parade...

When it started getting out of control, I brought her back to the curb and she had a snack, then I put her on my shoulders for a while before we took off early. I don't think we will venture to this parade again. We will stick to our Ankeny Summerfest parade and small home town 4th of July parades where she can actually see what is happening!

In Between Seasons!

2011-03-14T12:39:00.000-05:00

March 1st was beautiful! Then on the 2nd we decided to go find some ducks/geese to feed. It was SO COLD that day. We should have gone on the 1st! Evie loved it though because they came right up to her since I was standing back taking pictures!

These guys look cold! She kept asking me which were the girl ducks and which were the boys. We will see if she remembers next time...

Then the next week (March 8) it was cold and rainy during the day. E talked Daddy into going outside with her so she could play in the rain and puddles! That girl would go outside in any kind of weather :)

This was later that night... yep, snow! Ha ha!

So we went out and made a snowman the next morning... our first (and probably last) of the season. It seems that the snow had been too dry every other time we played outside this winter so we could never build a snowman. The scarf and gloves were in our family stocking from my mom (she always thinks of fun stuff like that) and the eyes, mouth and buttons are actual charcoal that was from our firebowl, and of course the nose was a carrot!

Had to give him a hug before going inside...

I warned E ahead of time that it was going to be nice the next couple of days so the snowman would start melting and go away. This was day 2...

And day 3, it was windy.

This whole week it is supposed to be around 50 to 60 degrees so I am hoping to get to the zoo one day and play outside too! We are looking forward to spring getting here!

She wants to go to school...

2011-02-25T16:43:00.000-06:00

Evie has been asking to go to school since last summer. We found out after she started gymnastics in the fall that they had a 2 year old "tot-time" preschool that was 1 or 2 days a week for 1 and 1/2 hours each time and it was full. She was on the waiting list all winter and it never opened up. So we started looking at a 3 year old preschool for the fall. Long term we are planning on homeschooling (or at least looking into it and giving it a try) but she is such a social person and we are ALWAYS together so we thought it would be good for both of us to have some separation. And she so does NOT get separation anxiety... at all. So we sat in on the 3 year old class at her gymnastics center and she loved it! We did too, we are going to go sit in on a 3 year old class at the Christian school in town too and then decide between them.

she jumped right in with the rest of the class

the Pledge of Allegience

craft time

story time

Its strange to me how watching your child grow up is so much fun but kinda sad at the same time.

I LOVE this song!

2011-01-30T18:43:00.000-06:00

I can't listen to this cd without moving in my seat! (I say in my seat because I'm usually driving). I LOVE LOVE LOVE this cd!

Catching Up!

2011-01-25T22:38:00.002-06:00

Since I haven't posted for a while, I thought that I would share some pictures and tell you some of the stuff we have been up to!

Beautiful "sun dogs" we saw on our way back from my parents over New Years.

This is an overview of some sewing I did for my husband's sister and her boys.

for our nephew Judah who is into "boy stuff"

for our nephew Isaiah who is really into army/camoflage, the little green army men were from when my dad was a kid! Can you tell which army man is the applique?

the scarf in the front is for my sis in law - the tutorial is here over at the Living with Punks blog

I made two of these Leila and Ben Little Caps for Judah and Isaiah. The outside I upcycled from a pair of D's ripped corderoy pants and the plaid is material from a shirt that belonged to their great grandpa - I also used it here.

crazy pig tails :)

D had a 4 day work trip last week and we went to my parents... this was Evie and her posse including pillow pet puppy, baby leopard, veloceraptor, lego duplo pony aka 'baby horsey', stinky baby, and jersey the baby cow :) LOVE IT! They were all watching Toy Story 2 ("Toy Story is my favorite")

D had also won 2 passes to Winter Jam but was going to be gone so I left Evie with my parents and my sister and I went. It was AWESOME! And I left sponsoring an orphan Korean baby girl in Evie's name :) She is sooooo cute! Go here to get more information if you would like to possibly sponsor a child waiting to be placed with a forever family. The guest speaker at the event was Tony Nolan and he has an amazing testimony. I received a copy of his book Hurt Healer when I signed up to sponsor that baby girl and can't wait to read it!

It's the Final Countdown... da na na nah, da na na na nah (you get the idea)

2011-01-08T23:45:00.000-06:00

D is a big Rocky fan, so every once in a while I find one of the tunes traveling through my head. This time, it jumped in there when I was thinking about our current countdown.... TO THE BAHAMAS! Okay, so if it weren't for my Evie, I would be 100% all in excited, but, as it were, I do have a slight reservation about leaving her and traveling so far away for a week. But, that is another story. Right now, I am focusing on the time I have remaining to try to lose the remaining baby weight (oh yeah, thats right, from going on 3 years ago... blegh) plus some extra that I managed to pack on as well. We have roughly 3 months.

Let me back up for a second to fill you in on what it is I am even talking about. D works for a company that rewards its managers with incentives like bonuses for sales goals reached and exceeded and when they exceed by said amount they can win trips. After a really rough year in 2009 with no income from me since it was my first full year as a SAHM, and zero bonus for D, he had an awesome year in 2010 and won the trip, which is to the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas. He actually won a trip to the same place for sales in 2007 but we didn't get to go because the trip was 2 months after Evie was born and of course they wouldn't let us take her. So instead they gave D "points" to pick out some merchandise.

So, here we are 3 months till D expects me to wear skimpy bikinis on the beach :) So, starting this week, I am pulling out the big guns for working out! It had been a long time since I was working out regularly so this week I started with my old faithful... my Tae Bo Live Advanced workouts on VHS (the reason we still have a vcr). I forgot how good they were, I was pretty sore the day after my first workout and am still feeling it. Evie has been really cute too, she does the stretching part of the workout and will jump in and "adjust my form" :) My plan is to start my Insanity workouts again on Monday and I also ordered the Zumba xbox 360 kinect game workout. A lot of reviews talk about how fun it is and that it also is a great workout and you see results pretty quick. I had been wanting to get it to try anyways and thought it would be a good addition to my regular workouts. I am going to see how things progress over the next few weeks and go from there. I will keep you posted on the other workouts.
I knew I had to really keep the reigns on my diet too but wasn't sure how I was going to that. I had always done Weight Watchers Points but after changing to eating more natural and organic, it had gotten too time consuming and complicated (which is partly why I haven't gotten motivated enough to lose the weight). That one actually was solved by D, he found an app on our phones that you put your current weight, goal weight, pounds you want to lose per week and it gives you your net calories for each day. It also has a food and exercise "diary" that you imput what you eat and your workout and it imputs the calories used or burned. Seriously, SOOOO easy! It has made a big difference! (The app is MyFitnessPal and can also be accessed online here so check it out!)

SO, there it is. And now, I need to go to bed. Hope you have a great night... oh, and if you didn't see my previous post, go check out the mom jeans post. SOOOOO funny!

I needed a good laugh...

2011-01-08T00:56:00.001-06:00

It has been a long December. Lots of family stuff going on that so sorry but I will not be sharing here at this time. So, amidst all the added stress and craziness, I took a long break from "Blogland". The husband and I were staying up late Friday night catching up on some DVR'd shows (Wipeout! and Cougartown if you must know haha) then Evie woke up and D went to get her back to sleep and while he was up with her, I grabbed the laptop and came for a look...
I had been thinking about whether I should continue to blog or not since I have had a hard time staying consistent with posting and projects. I mean, its not like I have built a following :) I started blogging because I as enjoyed reading what was going on in the lives of other mom's and creative women. I wanted to have a blog that would be out there doing the same thing for other women as well. I just can't do it. My life with Evie is different every day and its more important for me to be a mom and homemaker than to make sure that I post on my blog. So, for now, I will just post when I can, and visit other blogs when I can, and try to do more of my own projects instead of just reading about everyone else's :) And I will leave you with this link that made me laugh on mom jeans. Seriously, go read it! Hysterical! She actually uses the phrase "know your own crack"... and I recommend reading her follow up link at the end of the post. Leave me a comment and let me know what you thought :) I, was crying.

Kid's Craft - Handprint Turkeys

2010-11-21T18:07:00.000-06:00

I have been watching our chiropractor's little boy on Fridays since February in exchange for our monthly family adjustments and a sweet discount on supplements :) I didn't really need to but being the frugal person I am it is REALLY hard for me to turn down such a great deal! Besides, Kyan, the little boy I watch is just 3 days older than Evie so its good for both of them to have that play date for practicing socialization - especially since they are so opposite in some respects. Anyhow, I have been meaning to do more "crafts" and learning activities with them but truthfully I am either too wiped out to bother by the time Friday hits and just take advantage of the playmate or I am running late (always! one of my worst character traits - I'm working on it) and don't have time to grab the stuff I need before we rush out the door. But FINALLY, this Friday, I had an idea that came to me as I laid in bed the night before that didn't take much for supplies so even though I was running a few minutes late (again) I ran and grabbed the stuff. And I was sooooo glad I did too! Poor Ky was really not wanting dad to leave him (they have been really busy working on a new office space they will be opening and he of course wants to see him instead of us)... To try to calm him down, I brought out some big paper and E's safety scissors and markers and after refusing them for a few minutes, Evie got him interested and he tried out the scissors and after a bit he was just telling his dad bye with no anxiety yay!

ha, just a cute drawing by Evie on our way over to Ky's - its been really neat to see her starting to have the control to draw actual shapes. of course she can't very often draw what she wants, but she is drawing stuff that resembles something :)

Okay, so on to the craft...
You will need:
paper - I used brown paper that had come in a package but white would
scissors
markers or crayons
glue stick or tape would work
child's hand

-Start by tracing your kiddo's handprints (one or both) on a sheet of paper. With my not quite 3 year old subjects, I found that lightly holding their fingers in place as I traced to keep them from moving them and creating a fugly turkey shape.
-So, then once you have the "turkey" handprint traced, you can either just cut it out or you could let beforementioned kiddo color it. I just cut them out since they were on brown paper.
-Then give the remaining paper (or a new sheet of paper if you don't have much left) to them with a bunch of crayons or markers or whatever coloring medium you prefer and let them just go to town! I tried to get them to do some orange spots for the beak and red for the "gobbler" (the part that hangs from their chin) but mostly just let them go. It was funny to see how they each chose different colors. Evie used a lot of purple and Ky was more into the orange with zero purple :)

Then I just drew a "feather" template and retraced it on the colored paper. I made it a very basic leaf type shape and used 8 for each hand print. I didn't want to cover up the handprint shape so I glued the tail feathers behind the fingers and then I used the other four and overlapped them to make a wing.

This is one of Ky's, I put his up for decoration on a big mirror hanging in their family room. Also, I apologize for the photo quality for the above pictures, I brought my sls but left the memory card in the computer at home. Oops. So I used my phone camera.

See all of the purple in Evie's? :)

So, there you have it. I thought afterwards that it would be cute to make them into "puppets" with a popsicle stick too.

What I'm Listening To...

2010-11-14T20:38:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I am going to have to admit in this post that I really like the Twilight series... mostly the books (I like the movies as a visual version but always come away frustrated with all that they change or have to leave out because they can't make a 6 hour movie). Anyhow, to try to defend myself :) I have to say that I like that they are PG-13 type books and Stephenie Meyer does a great job of writing to make you feel the emotion of the characters and they are great love stories. I don't care that its vampires - meaning that I am not going to go read/watch anything related to vampires because I enjoy this series, thats not why I gravitate to them. After reading them, I have gone through a classical literature phase (still in it actually). I read Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park all by Jane Austen; Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Evelina by Fanny Burney, and now I am just starting Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte. I really liked most of the Austen novels because they had a happy love story ending, I was really torn while reading Wuthering Heights because it is so dark and tragic, I liked Jane Eyre and Evelina. After reading a lot of these older novels, I see a lot of similarity themes in the Twilight books.
So back to the title and reason I started this post. I have been listening to the music scores from the movies and it has reminded me of how music can be such an emotional thing even when there are no words. I have often wondered if we "learn" the emotion of certain types of music or if we are born with that ability. Like, say I grew up on a desert island with no exposure to music, would I have the same reaction to a piece that I do now? Just wondering...

Cute baby gift set from tie dyed t-shirt

2010-11-10T15:00:00.000-06:00

I actually started this project back in.... hmmm, I don't remember when. I'm pretty sure it was last winter... or fall... sometime. Anywho, I had come across this cute tutorial for refasioning a t-shirt into a newborn baby gown at This Mama Makes Stuff (go check out her blog - she is really talented and a really neat gal!). Okay, so I mostly had the gown completed (just sans elastic) and then hung it with all my onsies and toddler t-shirts waiting for some embellishment.... and it just hung there. Fast forward to this fall... my friend Katrina (her blog is Pics, Pages, & Purls) was due at the end of October with a little girl, so in my quest to make her a unique baby gift I brought out that gown in waiting.

since I used the existing hem on the t-shirt I couldn't just thread elastic through the bottom so I decided to give shirring a whack and this is what I came up with (btw I would never have figured it out if I hadn't found a shirring how-to specifically for drop in bobbins on newer machines here)

shirred the sleeves too

the newborn cap was made from one of the t-shirt sleeves so I could use the existing hem again :) I just traced a hat I had on hand and serged it up - then I made a fabric flower and hand sewed it on
*to make the flower I just used a scrap of t-shirt that I twisted and handstitched together as I wound it in a circle

these mittens were actually my second attempt, the first ones I tried using 1/8 in elastic and somehow they just didn't work and were way too big, the shirring worked much better
then I made a bigger twisted fabric flower and sewed a safety pin to the back for a removeable fabric flower

baby Aspen modeling the cap

Evie "holding" baby Aspen - I can't believe that Evie was that small (well a couple inches longer and a few ounces more)

Fall Leaf Crown by EviesGrandma

2010-11-09T16:13:00.000-06:00

So, we had been having a rough week with Evie before Halloween weekend. I don't know what the deal was, but she had hit some crazy, cranky, ornery stage and I was short on patience. Sooooo, my sweet mother took me up on coming to get her Saturday to stay overnight with them and we would come over Sunday after church and leave after she did her annual candy handing out (and when we went to get her I forgot my camera so I don't have any pictures till I can steal them from my mom's camera). D had to work on Saturday and Grandpa and Grandma didn't get on the road with her till 6:30pm (ish) so we didn't have tons of time but we did get to go see a movie Life As We Know It (cute but don't forget there has to be a sad part for the guardians to need to take care of the child - just sayin'). Anyhow, while Evie was at Grandma's she made her this leaf "crown". She had made one for my niece Violet too and it started out as a necklace but then she ended up being happier making it into a headband type crown.

can you tell Evie was super excited to model it for me

supplied needed:
*faux leaves
*elastic cording (the kind used for jewelry type crafts - much thicker than elastic thread)
*big hand-sewing needle

Meeasure around your child's head, multiply by 2 (the added bulk of the leaves keeps it snug), then all you do is thread your elastic cording on your needle and sew on as many leaves as you like, then sew back through them all a second time and tie off the cord! Thats it!

It was a good day! (and a recipe for sidewalk paint)

2010-11-07T20:50:00.000-06:00

Saturday started by D getting up with Evie and letting me sleep in! Then Evie was sent up to tell me to come down for breakfast and they had coffee for me (which meant a venti white chocolate mocha from Starbucks). When I came downstairs D got me breakfast (biscuits and gravy to go) and my coffee treat. Needless to say it wasn't super healthy, but it sure was yummy! Then we headed down to Costco to purchase our Christmas lights for the outside of the house - first year we will have them up since we have been married!

So proud of D! He got it all done, we even have it hooked up to a fancy schmancy timer!

Evie wanted to paint and I wanted to be outside so we made some sidewalk paint!
(super easy 1/4 c cornstarch, 1/4 c water and 6-8 drops food coloring)

bathtime, then some Nemo Go Fish with daddy (she requested to wear a shirt like daddy's which she said was her favorite shirt in the whole world)

sooooo pretty! now the hard part will be waiting to turn them on for a week or two... we'll see how that goes :)

Fun Homemade Window Stickies!

2010-11-03T19:46:00.000-05:00

Over the last year I have accumulated quite a bit of dimensional fabric paint (which I will refer to hereafter as "puffy paint" - come on people, lets call a spade a spade). Almost all of it was hand me downs! Yay for free stuff! Some was from people who had gotten it for a specific craft and didn't want to keep it "just in case" and a big chunk was from my sis in law who had gotten it from her grandma who has been trying to purge her stash of sewing/craft stuff. I started out thinking I would use it for freezer stencil shirts, but I have hardly used any of it and the other day an idea just popped in my brain! It was actually something I did for the first time a long, long... long time ago when I was in high school. We had to carry around these little organizer notebooks for school that had our schedule, assignments and other stuff written in them. Well, they were laminated and so I used some of my momma's puffy paint (hey this was the early 90s) and drew some stuff on the cover. Fast forward to when it had dried and I found that it peeled off and would restick just the same. I had some more that I put on my mirror in my bedroom too.

So, I have not thought any more about them for 15 ish years and it was such a fun idea! I am also currently testing one of the ones I made on the painted wall in a bathroom that I want to repaint anyways. Just in case. They stick to walls great too, like those vinyl wall appliques, but I don't know if they would yuck them up in any way. I did seek D's paint expertise to see what he thought and he said his main concern would be if the paint was loose or peeling on the wall they could peel that off, but if that's not a concern then he didn't think it would stain or leave any sort of residue. Nevertheless I am doing a test case :) UPDATE: after only a couple of hours on the paint wall, the owl had REALLY adhered and was very difficult to remove. It also had tiny specs of the wall paint on it. So, I guess that is not a good option :( oh, well. I will let you know if I come up with any more ideas on that front.

Okay, on to the how-to part of this. Really its pretty simple so let me know if you have any questions that I didn't cover.

Supplies List:

~ puffy paint in desired color(s)
~ non porous surface to paint on (I used an 8x10 picture frame from the dollar store - this worked great for printing text to trace), you could do this directly on a mirror or window just make sure its clean first
~ tissue or rag to wipe the tip of your paint bottle
~ scrap paper to do a test "squiggle" on so you don't start writing/drawing with the clear liquid that separates out or a big clot

Once you have all of your supplies lined up, get started! As you will see in the pics of the owls, I used a layering technique with the different colors and to give it some depth but you could also do a color by number approach that would be like you were coloring a picture in a coloring book. This is something I am going to try for my next window stickers because then they would look good from both sides. Also, make sure that you make it thick enough so that when dry it doesn't tear easily.

layer one - a bit bumpy but its the first one - I've wondered if there would be some way you could "iron" these to press them smoother

after about 2 hours of dry time - you just want the surface to be set so it doesn't mix with the new color, so you could probably do more like 30 minutes but I wanted to be safe

finished and waiting to completely dry - I just followed the bottle directions of waiting 24 hours after I finished it before peeling off the glass
*to peel off the paint surface, I used my fingernail, but you can use a razorblade or other thin object to slide between the paint and the surface, then just gently pull up at an angle across the sticker (ex: I started with the owl's ear and pulled towards myself, not straight up)

I printed out Evie's name in a cute font and put it in the picture frame then just painted over the letters

another cute little guy, Evie requested a purple one

stickies in action - she spent most of the first day moving them all over and they held up really well, no tears yet!

Let me know if you try this! I would love to see what you come up with!

Night Eyes at the Zoo

2010-11-01T23:38:00.007-05:00

We went with D's mom and dad and younger brother to the zoo for Night Eyes.

What's going on here?

2010-10-19T11:29:00.010-05:00

Right now, D is at an interview for a manager position at a different/bigger store than he is currently at. He REALLY wants this job... we have just been praying that God will guide the outcome whether it means a yes or no.

And, our laptop died for a couple weeks and then mysteriously revived... but is not expected to live much longer and Evie dropped our smaller fuji camera and now the lcd screen doesn't work :(

I have been working on a baby gift that I can't show you in case the recipient looks here, but will post pics as soon as it has been gifted! I have a sewing goal to go through and complete the projects I have that are cut out and in some cases even partially sewed. I think there are a couple appliqued onsies, some fleece baby pants and matching hat, some fleece mittens and ear warmer(?), a purse/bag, a skirt for me, a pillowcase dress, even a cloth fitted diaper from tshirts. Some have been on the back burner so long that I don't know what I will do with them when I finish them. Maybe a giveaway :) I also need to "pay up" on my pay it forward that is now almost a year late! I think the main challenge keeping me from getting that done is my fear of not making something good enough for the recipient. Especially when she is so crafty herself! Then there are a few belated birthday gifts to do as well...

Its also getting to that time of year when I try to go through all of our clothes and books and "stuff" and sort into throw away, put away (organize), and give away. Then get everything listed out and taken to a donation site. I have done some research to try to find something that maybe has more impact on the truly needy than Goodwill and found Hope Ministries. They have a thrift store that the proceeds fund their ministry and they use donated clothing in a free clothes closet. So I think that is where I will take them this year.

Going along with donations is volunteering. We have been talking about doing a Christmas time adopt a child or family to give gifts to that wouldn't normally get anything. There are opportunities all over the place for that. I have found some at the United Way volunteer opportunities web listing for my area.

Anyhow, I started this before lunch and it is now almost 4. Just one of those everything takes longer than expected, not getting out of jammies, barely getting anything done type days.

Ha Ha! I did it!

2010-10-16T22:29:00.005-05:00

You are probably wondering why I am so excited... well, its because I just finished my first project for Evie in a while, and it was my first e-pattern that I purchased here after seeing it here. I made it take waaaaaaay longer than it should have, just because I hemmed and hawwed about it since I was unsure of the results, but it turned out REALLY CUTE! Now I just have to do a fitting on my model (who had gone to bed before I completed it)!
Its great because the pattern calls for 2 fat quarters worth of fabric, one for the outside and one for the lining.

I had just enough of this cute dark brown corduroy left for my first try! I will take some better pics in the daylight tomorrow and with Evie modeling it too. The whole time I was working on it today she kept peeking over the back of the couch at me excitedly asking "what are you making me mommy?!" Hopefully she will be as enthusiastic about it when I try to get her to model it for me :)

Evie quotes!

2010-10-13T23:13:00.002-05:00

While sitting eating lunch together.
Evie: I'm so happy you are my mommy!
Me: I'm so happy you are my Evie!
Evie: (after a bit of contemplation) I'm so happy that you are my mommy and I'm your Evie!

Rocking at bedtime. We hear what sounds like D running into something downstairs...
Evie: Siwwee(silly) daddy!
Me: Why is daddy silly?
Evie: Because he runned into someting.
then after a bit of giggling she adds: That always cracks me up! *then she really started laughing

Driving.
Evie: (loudly) Its a green light. You can go-oh! (yep it was a two syllable attitudy go)
Me: What?
Evie: I was talking to that car (pointing at a car that had waiting to turn longer than necessary), they were in our way!

Then of course there are the staples like:
When I have wings, then I can fly!
When I am big, then I can *fill in the blank

Such a big girl! said with happy mommy tears

2010-10-10T22:49:00.004-05:00

This weekend D and I finally got to go out for our anniversary! The tradition since Evie was born has been for Grandpa and Grandma to come spend the day with her on a Saturday while we go eat at Ohana's (a japanese hibachi restaurant with AMAZING scallops... its all in the sauce) and do a movie or shopping or whatever. This year we thought we would try having Evie do her first sleepover away from us at their house instead. We told her on Tuesday last week and she wanted to go NOW! Every day she asked if grandpa and grandma were going to come get her and I tried to explain how many more days it would be etc. and also tried to make sure she understood that mommy and daddy were not going to be there, just Evie and grandma and grandpa... she seemed to get it. The whole time we were all wondering how she would do since this was the first time. She even got a special little "Evie size" princess backpack to take with her! Grandma was totally prepared with all kinds of healthy food and snacks for her since we are pretty particular what we feed her still. When the day finally came and they were there to pick her up, she followed daddy out to put in the car seat and climbed into it while everyone else was still in the house. She didn't get back out of it. She gave us both hugs and smootches and waved and yelled BYE! as they pulled out... it kind of made me sad that she was so willing to leave us behind :( but I asked myself "wasn't that what we wanted? to raise a happy, secure child who is not worried about separation because we have shown her that we will always come for her etc?", yes. She did amazing and we got to concentrate on being a couple for a day and a half. When we went to pick her up Sunday afternoon, she was happy to see us but still enjoying her time with grandpa and grandma. We got her ready to go and stayed for a while knowing that since she hadn't napped she would probably fall asleep on the ride home and didn't want it to be too early so she woke up and couldn't get back to sleep till really late. We left around 6pm and poor girl zonked out about 6:30 while chewing a pecan! It has now gotten pretty late and I should be heading to bed so I am not a zombie when she wakes up super duper early! We left g&g's house with the understanding on all sides that this was a complete success and it would be done again soon... and will be good practice for if D wins a trip to the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas for work that would be next spring :)

Ta-Da! A finished project!

2010-10-07T21:43:00.006-05:00

I made this for sweet baby Roewyn. Her momma did was not at a place in her life where she was expecting or ready to become a mother and her family desperately wanted her to give her baby up for adoption but she couldn't do it so she had nothing. She was taken in just before she gave birth by a friend of mine (her sister is married to the new mommy's brother) and she sent out a message asking us to rally around this girl and help her in any way we could. She has gotten so much support it is amazing! Amongst the hand me downs I wanted her to have something special that was made with love just for her, so I whipped up these cloth rings and appliqued onsie. The rings are pretty easy to figure out and you can just use scraps but if you need a tutorial, Make It and Love It already has a great one made up so no need to try to put my crazy newbie sewing skills down :), she has good instructions and pictures too!

Next on the dockett? A super cute little cap for my Evie that The Train to Crazy did a sew along for. Seriously? Cute! I am pretty excited about the fabric I chose for it!

Working on some sewing!

2010-10-04T15:13:00.006-05:00

I have actually been working on some sewing the last two days! That probably doesn't sound like much, but for me that is really something right now... I have a backlog of gifts that I need to work on and also some fun clothing for Evie. She was watching me work and asked "what are you making me?" and I had to tell her I was making something for a little baby. She didn't get upset at all but it reminded me that I need to get some of her stuff done too!

I don't want to put pics out here till I am done with at least one gift set... its for a new single mommy who doesn't have much support from her immediate family (they wanted her to give her baby up for adoption) and so her brother's sister-in-law and her family has taken her and her new baby in for the first couple of months and then she will move to live with her brother and his wife. She has been getting all kinds of hand me downs from people but I thought she should have something special that was made just for her! I am so excited to get it finished to show you!

Oh and I have been trying to get a post about our trip to the MN Zoo but the photo uploader keeps erroring so I will have to keep trying... and I have an appointment to get my hair cut this Friday. I am not sure if I will do anything different yet since this is my first time going to this gal but I'll let you know if I do!

Evie's first actual drawing!

2010-10-01T22:37:00.005-05:00

Evie is always doing something and she loves to draw and color and paint and TRY. She is so determined but will sometimes get frustrsted because she can't get her hand to do what her mind wants it to. I just keep reminding her that if she keeps trying she WILL get better!
Earlier today, we were driving and she was using her "drawing board" (magna doodle) and all of a sudden she says "its a piggy!" and turns around this amazing drawing! Now I know that it has probably a lot, or even everything to do with being her mom but both D and I were so excited to see that she had pieced this creation together.

I asked her where his nose was if he was a piggy and she pointed to a spot down below the two circles that look like eyes and I said, there's nothing there! So she turned it back around and added a nose and then said "its a bird!" and sure enough, it did look like a bird! I thought it looked like a baby version of one of the 321 Penguins :)
And after supper we got out markers and paper and did some more drawing. I tried to teach her some tic-tac-toe and she got some practice making O's :)

Evie on vacation!

2010-09-30T21:03:00.003-05:00

I promise to post more pictures from our nice camera but thought I would stick a few on here that were cute candids of Evie and some taken by her as well... she is becoming quite the photographer and never misses an opportunity for a photo shoot. She did that both nights at our hotel and looking through the pictures I found she took some pretty good ones :)

This was at Ikea on the escalators. She loved them! And since she was not big enough to go in the play area while we shopped we let her do a few rounds on these when we left.This was after our long day at the Minnesota Zoo. We were there for 6 hours! And she didn't take a nap, even in the car on the 15 minute drive back to our apartment, but when we were driving to eat before heading to Ikea, she zonked out about 2 minutes from the restaurant and didn't wake up until we were halfway through the meal! She NEVER does that anymore!

Oh and we had quite the ordeal with that... D carried her in from the car still asleep and as we were shown to our table our hostess commented did we know Evie only had 1 shoe on? Um, no. So we figured it had come off in the car and we just didn't notice. It wasn't there, or in the restaurant that we could see or in the parking lot. Well, the only other place we had been was the hotel and so D drove the 2 minutes back there to check the parking lot and grab her other shoes while I sat next to her sleeping in the booth. We left our number with them and thought they might find it when they cleaned that night. No one called and so I called the next morning before they were open and checked with someone and they said nothing had been turned in and checked where we had sat and found nothing. They said they would call if they found anything and I let them know we would be leaving later to go back to Iowa. Its silly but I got in the car and cried. I was just so frustrated that somehow the shoe had vanished. And these were Evie's favorite shoes, her bright pink crocs. Cut to a couple hours later as we are shopping at IKEA, I get a call and its the restaurant, asking if I had gotten their message. They had found the shoe in a completely different area of the restaurant! Yay! So she nows has two shoes again!
Crazy hair after taking her ponytail out!

Stinky Baby close up portrait by Evie

her sofa bed at the hotel, by Evie

She came and told me at one point that she took a picture of "Weevies bed and mommy daddy's bed"

say cheese mommy!, by Evie

another one, by Evie

7 years!

2010-09-27T17:09:00.005-05:00

Happy Anniversary to my husband of 7 whole years! Through good times and bad... and back to the good times :) D came home today with 7 white roses <3 My wedding bouquet was white roses and he has given me a white rose for every year we have been married... he got me a dozen this year because it was like a 3rd of the cost of 7 single ones. He knows me so well - I am very frugal for those that don't know me :)
We haven't gotten to celebrate yet because a company that we will call company "SW" decided about 6 weeks ago that they were going to have a super sale Friday the 24th to Sunday the 26th and require ALL employees, managers included to work open to close the whole weekend :(

Soooooo, we are going to plan a date night for one of the next few weekends AND... wait for it, Evie is going to have her first overnight sleepover with Grandma and Grandpa E! and hopefully we won't be driving in the middle of the night to go pick her up :) Since she was born we have started a tradition of going to eat at a Hibachi grill called Ohana's where I have these amazing
scallops with a secret lemon butter sauce... seriously, I could live on that stuff mmmmmmmm...

I am nervous and excited to have an entire evening and night with just my hubby and no little girl to take our attention away from each other for that little bit! I have strict orders for Grandpa and Grandma about what they are allowed to feed her. We don't give her dairy or things with sugar or artificial stuff in it and sometimes thats hard for them but we do try to have "special" things for her that are healthier but still super yummy! I love her sooooo much but she does consume a lot of my time and I am sure that D would like more attention but he really doesn't complain. I am so blessed!

While we are waiting for our anniversary celebration we are preparing to leave in the morning on a mini 3 day 2 night vacation in Minneapolis! All 3 of us are SOOOOOOOOO excited! We really need a break where things to be done around the house aren't staring us down and we can really get out and have some fun together and relax! We have a pool in our hotel and are planning on visiting the Mall of America to go to the aquarium and check out the amusement park, maybe go to the zoo and definitely are making our first trip to IKEA! Yay!

Okay, so I need to get packing so we are ready to go in the morning! Did I mention I was excited? Just checking :) Evie keeps telling me that "I want to go on vacation NOW!" its hard for her to understand waiting till after we sleep tonight :) I promise to take oodles of pictures to share with you after we are back!

Tutu cute! (I know, so lame!)

2010-09-26T14:29:00.004-05:00

So this morning after I took Evie's jammies and pull up off when she went potty (yes, she still wears them at night even though she has been 100% panties during the day since April - I'm just not ready to go there yet...) anyways, she was then "nakey" as it has been termed in our house. She then told me she was going to go downstairs, to which I replied "not nakey, you will be cold" since it was pretty chilly here last night. So she went in her room and I went to do something in our room and when I came out she was standing in the hallway dressed like this, see picture below:

I laughed to myself and sent her in to show off her outfit choice to D. This btw was the very first time she has ever dressed herself without fashion guidance or help with putting on the clothes. She got it all the way on and even had it right side out and facing the right way. Then, seemingly satisfied with her choice, she proceeded to go downstairs and play with her trains :)

Puzzles!

2010-09-23T16:08:00.005-05:00

I don't know why these milestones keep suprising me and in turn making me mourn the loss of my little baby girl, who is growing into such an accomplished little girl. So this week my little Evie has decided she is VERY into the big kid "real" puzzles. We have been doing at least 1 every day this week. Well today we got out her Very Hungry Caterpillar 24 piece puzzle that Grandma Joyce got for her around the time she was born :) and Evie put together half of it while I was working in the kitchen... no help from me! She will be 3 in February and she is such a determined little thing that once she sets her mind to something she WILL do it!

Another thing we are hearing lately any time we see or talk about birds of any kind she will start saying "when I have wings, then I will fy (fly for non Evienese speakers) with the birdies!" said with gusto!

Gymnastics!

2010-09-10T23:06:00.005-05:00

So at some point in time I looked and my little baby girl has decided to grow up and become her own little person. Okay, so I know it wasn't just all of a sudden but it seems that we reached a pinnacle where it has become very apparent how grown up she is now. She has been wearing panties full time during the day since April 20 of this year, she told me today that she wanted to go to school and wants to ride a school bus. She wears her leappad backpack around all the time saying she is going to school. She has started memorizing Bible verses... that girl has an incredible memory! It never ceases to amaze us at the things she remembers or puts together.

So you are probably wondering what this video has to do with the whole "growing up" business. Well, I was flipping through the paper after we got back from Labor Day weekend and came across an add for a local gymnastics place... well, then I saw that they also had preschool. Evie has been big into doing somersaults and jumping around for quite a while now which had got us thinking we should check into something to teach her how to be safe doing these things and give her a good outlet for her energy too. I had kind of checked into preschool but found that most started at 3 and she won't be 3 till February so she couldn't do this year. Well, this place does a "tot time" for an hour and a half 1 or 2 days a week as a younger preschool, learning a letter a week and of course other things, AND getting some time apart from parents (which is more for a break that anything because she is NOT clingy when it comes to going to hang out with other kids or learning even in new environments). Anyhow, I was too late for the preschool but we got put on a waiting list (she is super bummed about that) but there were still spots open in the 2-3 year old gymnastics class. So after talking it over with D, we took her tonight to go register... um, that was a BIG mistake. Not a mistake to enroll her, but I probably should have just gone in early on Monday before class because after I filled out the paperwork and we did a mini tour, we were let in the gym to get a close up look at where she would be at and she starts taking off her shoes (she was paying attention when the gal told us that the main thing about dress code is that she had to be barefoot) and when D told her no, not right now, she started SOBBING. Seriously, we had more than one person ask us as we were trying to discreetly leave if she had gotten scared being in the gym and they were a bit suprised when we told them that "no, she just didn't want to leave". So needless to say I think she will enjoy the classes :) I am a bit concerned about them having an end time though, and hope that she will be able to part more amiably after having done it and knowing she will be coming back. I hope to have some pictures soon of my little cutie - we don't have a leotard yet, I think we will wait to test the waters a bit more first, but it should be a fun time for both of us!

I need a new hairstyle!

2010-09-07T15:49:00.009-05:00

Soooooo, I think the last time I cut my hair was about a year ago and that was just a trim. My hair is now past my natural waist and is desperately in need of a trim and a style! I have been wanting to try some bangs again but was hesitant to take that step during the summer when I would be out in the heat a lot. I know a lot of people have bangs, and have them during the humid summer months but I didn't think it was a good time for me to be getting used to a new look. The other problem is that, well there are two more problems really... the first is that I want to have a picture of the hairstyle I will be trying to get and I don't generally buy magazines with the cute hairstyles in them and it seems like I can't find them online (I am trying this one again as we speak - or as I type) and the last and I think probably the most substantial issue is that the gal who had been my stylist since like 2004, got married and then moved to South Korea! Yeah, I KNOW! Back before I was a SAHM (stay at home mom) I at one point worked at a Salon and Day Spa as the Esthetician (or Aesthetician, same thing) and Nail Tech. So I really had a relationship with my stylist :) Anyhow, I had always had issues with getting bad cuts and so to me it is an anxiety inducing thought to be searching for a new stylist. I do know some other gals from my salon days but then I have almost an added anxiety about trying one of them in the case that I HATE how they do my hair that I can't just never talk to them again because I know them away from the salon :( soooooooo this is my drama right now. HELP PLEASE! I am happy to have recommendations for cuts, styles, etc. and if you happen to be in my area, you can recommend persons as well :)

Okay one more issue... I am always the one taking the pictures so I am having trouble finding a picture of me that you can see my hair... :( hmmmmmm so I had D take one quick for me.

Ugh! Putting pictures of beautiful made up celebrities next to my no make up pre-bedtime picture is not producing any warm fuzzies :( But here are some diff bang styles I found and am trying to decide between... help please!

Ps. This post only took me 2 days to get out in blog world! Seriously it was supposed to be quick and easy... then came an interruption right after getting the pics all selected, then couldn't get to it for a whole other day, then finally got back to it today to edit pic placement and post it - after the errors stopped.

My little photographer

2010-09-06T21:16:00.004-05:00

Evie is becoming more and more interested in taking pictures. It is so cute, in fact as I am typing this she is doing a photoshoot on the table next to me with her bug cars and little tonka truck. She talks to them while showing them where they need to stand ("you go here and you go here, okay?") in this little high pitched voice. Then she sits the camera right in front of them and snaps a couple pics. I have attached some samples of her portfolio. I think she will have fun looking back at these some day.

Standing on the deck taking a picture of daddy cleaning off his mower.

taking my picture from right in front of me

"stinky baby" in the high chair

close up of the place setting for stinky baby

stinky baby and ittle baby

Vintage Baby Toys

2010-09-02T18:19:00.003-05:00

Just some fun stuff I found when we were at my parents last weekend... vintage baby toys from when I was little!

Where has the summer gone?

2010-08-22T23:08:00.004-05:00

I can't believe that the school year has started again! I had so many grand ideas for things to do during the summer with Evie and as a family. Life has once again happened and I feel like I am running out of breath trying to catch up. It seems like every day I look at Evie and she is turning more and more into a little person. Sometimes it is hard for me to remember that even though she is already 2 and 1/2, she is ONLY 2 and 1/2! I find myself expecting so much from her because she acts beyond her age so often. Well, enough about that, my real reason for this post is to enlist help from anyone out there who has tips, ideas, resources on preschooling ideas for me to use with her. We already do lots of reading and watch some fun educational shows that teach about animals and letters/words, but I am a bit more of a structure oriented person and would love to have some solid ideas to turn to when trying to turn normal daily activities into more of a learning experience. Keeping it fun :) She does count to 12 (I don't know why this number, but after 12 it usually goes to 16?) and knows her alphabet but really doesn't recognize many of the letters or numbers when she sees them. She talks.... A LOT and does really well with communication. She has a very extensive vocabulary for her age... I remember when she was 20 months old that I had tried to list out all the words she used and even some short 2-3 word phrases and at that time she had well over 100 words, then I looked in our Dr. Sears The Baby Book and it said that by 24 months you could expect a child on average to have around 50 words. We knew she was chatty but that kind of opened our eyes to it since she has a little buddy 7 weeks older than her who is along the same lines as her, so we hadn't thought as much of it. Anyways, I am rambling and I need to get some sleep because sweet girl didn't nap today and so was in bed by just after 7pm which means an early morning for me most likely :)

Ta ta for now :)
B

Weekend Away

2010-06-11T21:56:00.004-05:00

We had a wedding out of state on the 5th of June and so we made sure the hotel had a pool so Evie could practice swimming :) The wedding was an evening wedding so by the end of the night E was so tired! She did really good in the car going 4 and 1/2 hours each way in panties even! We had one accident because we were in a construction zone and had no where to pull over for too long after she told us she had to go. She even slept till 7:30 in the morning in the other bed in the hotel!

A big pool!

The hot tub

Daddy's girl

so sweet

I love this one!

So tired!

swimming, still won't put her whole face in

How to make a flower hair clip... or Finally, I made something!

2010-06-06T19:30:00.006-05:00

I have been in such a rut lately of not finishing (or really even starting) any projects and it was really bothering me. This past weekend we had a wedding to go to and I just happened to have some fake flowers in my craft stuff that matched the dress I had gotten for Evie. I tried to find a tutorial on how to make a flower hair clip but didn't find anything in my brief search so... I winged it. Now I am not one that is usually comfortable trying something that I might mess up but I felt okay about this because I had a dozen of these purple flowers that I got for free and so figured I would get it right eventually and wasn't really out anything but time if it went badly a few times. So I thought I would share how I did it for those who might want to try it as well.

I started with this... just a regular artificial flower that I pulled off the stem.
Then I dissasembled the pieces and was left with this... I discarded the plastic parts that held it together originally.

I had some single pronged alligator clips and grossgrain ribbon that I used to make a lined clip. All I did was use my low heat glue gun to stick it all the way around. I will say if you have never done it before only put glue on small bits at a time because with the low heat glue gun it cools very fast and if you don't stick it down quick enough it is just a lump on the ribbon.

Then to assemble the flower I just glued each petal layer to the next and then glued a small flat jewel in the middle to cover the hole. Then just glue the whole thing to the lined clip. I used all of the petal layers from the original flower but of course you can used just a few if you wish. The whole process with stopping to take pictures only took about 10 or 15 minutes and that was while trying to figure it out so I would think that after you know what you are doing it would only take a few minutes to do. So a good project to do when you want to have instant gratification :)

Here is the outfit together... I did add a white crocheted headband to it since she still doesn't have enough hair to support a clip :)

She was very cooperative for her photo shoot as you can see.

CHEESE!

The wedding was at 6:30pm so the lighting outside afterwards was perfect for pictures! This one looks almost professional ;)

A better view of the flower and a sweet daddy daughter moment.

So, there you have it. A quick and easy project to produce a flower clip that would cost you $5 or more to purchase. I think mine cost me about 15 cent because the flower and jewel were free and the clip was about 10 cents plus glue. Anyways, I am going to be on the lookout for cute cheap fake flowers that are destined to life as a hair clip! Let me know if you have any questions!

My little artist!

2010-05-10T16:37:00.003-05:00

This was her first time with water colors and she LOVED it! When she saw what happened when she put the brush in the paint then on paper her face as you can see just lit up! It is so fun watching her learn and discover, I never get tired of it!

Garage Sale Season How I've Missed Thee!

2010-04-18T00:48:00.004-05:00

I forgot to take pictures of my purchases before sorting them into the laundry but I made out like a bandit today at a couple of sales! I ended up getting 4 grocery bags of clothes and shoes for Little Miss. Full of brand name items such as Old Navy, Childrens Place and Osh Kosh. I was able to get all of my items for half price so even though I spent about $45 I got A TON of clothes. Plus my hubby says he doesn't mind as long as I am getting some nice stuff. Oh and another thing... he got up this morning with Evie and let me sleep about another hour then I got to go out and peruse the sales for about 3 hours while he stayed home and played with her... and I was told more than once not to hurry but just take my time and enjoy myself. What a sweetie! Anyways, I need to get to bed so I can get up for church in the morning but thought I would share my excitement and say Welcome back garage sale season!

Oh there was one little tidbit to share about Evie and her new stuff... I found her a pair of hot pink crocs and some little clear sparkly jelly sandals among other things but she took one of each of these pairs of shoes and put them on and said she was ready for nigh night... so cute!

Loving this weather!

2010-04-15T21:20:00.003-05:00

look mom a worm!

helping me in the dirt

at the park

dancing in the rain

burning off energy after dinner

First Trip to the Zoo this Year

2010-04-14T21:21:00.005-05:00

baby train on the slide... yeah, they went to the zoo to go to the park within :)

watching the sea lions in training

giraffes

holding hands with her little buddy

So excited, we got a family pass this year so we can go all the time! And we got a +2 so we can take friends and family too :) We also combined the Science Center pass too, I am excited to see how Evie likes the Science Center.

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T17:48:00.008-05:00

We had a great Easter Sunday! Our church service helped to remind me why Jesus is so important in my life. Around 15 of us shared on a poster board around 6 words what this Jesus has done in our lives or means to me... I wrote "never gave up on me" on my poster board. Seeing all the other people and their reasons really made me emotional and brought to the surface a deep gratitude for how powerful Jesus' ability to change and shape lives is. There were people who are doing awesome things for Christ and the body who used to be drug addicts, convicts, abusers. I knew about Jesus growing up but it didn't seem like a reality because of how I saw some of the so called Christians living. I was a nice person, didn't try to do anything purposely hurtful to people. I enjoyed the college lifestyle and was having a lot of fun. But deep down, I could feel something was missing and no matter how much "fun" I had or how many people I got to like or even "love" me. Fast forward to 2002 when I met my future husband, then eventually we went to church with my sister (who had been working on me for a long time) and I was open to the message. God had been knocking on the door to my heart for a long time and that December I finally let Him in. It has been over 7 years now and I can honestly say that my life is soooo much better when I live my life God's way. Anyways, I am so very thankful that my God loved me so much even before I loved him back that Jesus came to die for my sins and in that he defeated death and was raised again on that first Easter Sunday!
Daddy didn't think about the backdrop for the pic... but she posed cute :)

Evie got to open her Easter basket before church this morning since we were going to a friends' for lunch and an egg hunt. She got some Melissa and Doug puzzles, raisins, a new itty bitty baby doll, a bath tub book, some spill proof bubbles, safety scissors (to which she said "my own scissors... not yours, mine" - she was pretty happy about them), Bible song cds, and a few other things. She didn't even mind that there wasn't any candy :)

Hunting eggs with her buddy Miciah. Every time she found one she said "I hind another one!"

and no, she didn't find the green egg in the bush... even with all our helping words... she peeked on the one side and said "no, there isn't an egg"

Miciah found it though!

Spring is in the Air!

2010-04-03T23:14:00.005-05:00

This past week we had some absolutely beautiful weather! It was in the 70s and even got to the high 80s by Thursday. It has been a bit cooler the past couple of days but I am hoping for a little warmer for Easter Sunday dresses :)
The first day out and about... Evie was practicing pedaling her trike (she did really well backwards but forward was harder), she mowed the driveway, did sidewalk chalk, and drug her pool out from under the back deck all the way around the house.

our lovely driveway art

walking on the trail near our house after dinner on the hot day

the geese by the trail keeping an eye on us

a great picture of mommy and Evie taken by Daddy :) dancing in the water on the deck

precious little footprints... how is it possible to love her more because of this?

a beautiful sunset

Easter Weekend #1 March 27-28

2010-04-03T01:12:00.010-05:00

So being that there are 4 "kids" (I use this term lightly since the youngest will be 29 this year) in my family plus 3 spouses and 2 grandkids we don't always get together for holidays on the actual holiday. I guess you could say we have our own version of "insert name of holiday" observed :) So on my side of the family we celebrated Easter together the weekend before Easter complete with egg hunts for the little kids and the big kids!

As a small side story that you might need for history on our Easter gatherings... I'm pretty sure there was a period of time during which we didn't really do egg hunts but then as we got to college age (and by we I mean most of the 4 of us at one time since there is only 5 years from the oldest to youngest) my mom started doing egg hunts with quarters in the eggs for laundry money. I tell you, that woman has the ability to hide those little plastic eggs in the middle of the yard and you can't find them... there was many a year that the last egg or two went missing until a later date and then would be mailed with contents intact to the intended recipient. There also has been a nickname of full contact egg hunt placed on the event as well after one year two grown women in Easter dresses wrestled in the grass over an egg.

Anyways back to the present... so this year the granddaughters are 2 and 18 months so they were able to fully participate for the first time. My mom went all out and got them each 6 GIGANTIC (just look at the pictures) eggs to find that were filled with everything from a stuffed animal to pom poms and play jewelry. Evie had so much fun with her egg hunt that later she helped the big kids with theirs! She also loved her Easter basket that contained a spring hat, rain boots and some healthy snacks (no candy for this one yet), window stickies, coloring books and puppy/kitty stickers and magnets. Then the "kids" (and by kids I mean myself and my siblings and spouses) finished off the day with a trip to the historic BP movie theatre that has both a balcony and an opera pit - yeah this is old school - to see How to Train Your Dragon. I don't think I will ever feel like an adult when we go back to my parents'.... is that how it is for everyone?

Oh, and sorry but somehow I didn't get any pictures of the big kid egg hunt. Too busy hunting I guess.

Heading out to hunt some eggs.

You sure can't miss those bad boys!

Checking out the loot :)

wearing a few of the items from her Easter basket... the hat, the necklace and the boots :)

seriously this is like a flash forward to when they are 80! Little Violet and Evelyn in their Sunday hats :)

putting up the window stickies from her Easter basket afte we got home. She really put all of them up like that, I was just handing them to her. I know... I was as amazed as you!

Happy Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T22:51:00.005-06:00

What a day! Our Valentine's Day started with Evie's first day in the Preschool Church class at church now that she turned 2 and she loved it! Mommy was a bit sad though that her little girl is growing up so fast!
Then after church a quick lunch at home and nap time for Evie and Mommy then dinner and a movie with my hubby while my sister and her roommate came to play with Evie. They watched some VeggieTales, had some dinner and did some painting - they even helped Evie to make her first paint masterpiece which will go in her room (I promise I am going to actually put some nails in the walls to hang pictures soon... really) They said she did really good with the brushes and would keep asking for more of whatever color she wanted - I think it turned out beautifully!
And Joni made one for us as well :) Sorry about pic quality I did it with a flash since it was dark out - the little silver squares are attached and there is a pretty dangle in the "orange" square.

Oooo, I better watch out! Two posts in two days?

what I've been up to

2010-02-13T21:32:00.009-06:00

I am a bad blogger... I haven't posted in over a month and I still haven't finished my Pay It Forward gifts (sorry girls) but I am trying to make some minor amends by sharing a few projects that I have done recently. I seriously have not done very much sewing and have hardly been on the computer. The only reason I get to check my email or facebook is because we got new cell phones at the end of December that have internet capability (I love my Samsung Moment!). And I also have been busy keeping up with my daughter who turned 2 yesterday. We had a small party with family today for her with some all natural/raw treats for her since we don't give her sugar or dairy as a practice. I will post more on that in a different entry and include recipes and pictures. For now though I want to say I am sorry :) and I will try to be a better blogger. Oh yeah and I have started learning to knit for the second time... and I am over halfway done with a scarf that I intend to make a matching hat for and a matching set for Evie.

I did a refashion of a size XL Sherwin-Williams tshirt to a size 2T long sleeve so Evie and Daddy had mathcing shirts. She loved it! (even though her expression doesn't say it)

My first freezer stencil tshirt. I did a Colts tshirt for Evie for the Superbowl... I will say the lettering on the back was a pain to peel off since it was so close together. But it turned out pretty good. And you can't really see it from the pics but I used sparkly blue fabric paint so it was really girly :)

And I had gotten a cute 24 month onsie at a garage sale a couple summers ago and since we don't really do onsies anymore I decided it would be better as a shirt so tonight I hacked the bottom off and did a quick hem on the bottom. (I love quick - instant gratification projects like that).

Ear warmers, mittens and cinnamon applesauce ornaments

2009-12-20T16:08:00.009-06:00

I made these for 3 kids in a family that my church small group adopted for Christmas.
This is Evie mixing up cinnamon applesauce ornament dough.

One that Evie "made" for her little friend Miciah - they both love Thomas the Train.

I had a request to put the ornament recipe out here:

1cup applesauce(I used unsweetened) and 1 cup ground cinnamon (I saw another recipe that did 1/2 cup cinn and 1/2 cup flour but haven't tried that)

as you can see I put the ingredients in a zip loc baggie and mush/mixed them till they were forming a dough then just sprinkle your work area and rolling pin with some cinnamon and roll out to about 1/4 inch or maybe a little thicker (if you roll it too thin its hard to get off the counter and is more brittle when dried), use a straw to make holes for hanging later, then you can either air dry or put in a 200 degree oven turning often till dry... then you can just string up or decorate with glue/glitter/etc.

Hers and Little Hers Gingerbread Aprons

2009-12-13T01:28:00.005-06:00

I just got done with these tonight - it feels so good to have some sewing projects completed. I have been so bad lately with getting multiple projects prepped and partially done but not getting all the way through them. One of these is for me and the other is for Miss Evie. Hers was done before she went to bed so she is modeling it below in her cute reigndeer jammies. I didn't take a close up the the green fabric has little yellow stars, and gingerbread men holding candy canes so the red and white seemed fitting. I didn't use a pattern, just kind of winged it. I even used my serger for part of it.

Zero to lots in two days

2009-12-08T21:14:00.007-06:00

Our blizzard... this was after we had shoveled.
Yesterday when we got just a few inches - the bald spot is where my husband was parked when it snowed.

Practicing her snow driving.

This was the night of the first real snow - she didn't want to come back in... no, seriously we almost had to drag her back in.

A glimpse into Life with Evie

2009-10-15T23:17:00.004-05:00

Really, I have been meaning and wanting to do some sewing... and I actually have done a couple of things (those pics are on my other memory card and I just don't feel like getting up right now). I made a pair of custom fleece slippers for Evie, they are a touch small and I need to put some elastic (maybe I should try the FOE) but super cute none the less. I also have cut out the pieces for a t-shirt refashion to a newborn gown and now just need to do the sewing part. I do have an excuse for this week though. We were at my parents last weekend to go to the apple orchard and for Evie to get a hayride from Grandpa and pick out pumpkins. Then we were reorganizing our basement and getting ready for family to come stay. My brother and his wife and our niece Violet(see pic at bottom) are staying with us because they have a work convention where we live and so stay with us and I am watching Violet during the day while they are gone. So, not much getting done when chasing two toddlers :) Maybe next week... in the meantime here are some cute pics from the last month or so.
so tired but must draw

she climbed in there on her own - I guess that'll teach us to put a big bowl on the floor

hayride with Grandpa (Poppi)

Grandpa showing her how to start a fire.... great

With cousin Violet who is 13 months (Evie is 20 months) - syncronized sippies :)

Seriously? Its SEPTEMBER!

2009-09-28T22:26:00.004-05:00

This was what we saw Sunday night driving home from a friends house. Yeah, and you can't see it very well, but the table that is outside to the left of the picture... it has garden plants for sale. I just don't know what to say. Wasn't there a time that they waited at least until after Halloween?

Septemer 27, 2003

2009-09-26T23:55:00.004-05:00

Worst blogger ever!

2009-09-26T00:30:00.005-05:00

Okay, so maybe not THE worst but I think I rank up there! I have to say that I just don't feel like I am good at this. I keep saying I need to post and as things happen in life I think "oh, that would be a cute post" but then by the time I get close to the computer my motivation has subsided and I put off posting once again. I don't know how many people actually read this but if you don't know me in person, then you probably don't really feel like you know me at all!
Well, how about this... today started out pretty rough. When Evie and I got up this morning she had a short fuse for reasons still unknown. After unsuccessful attempts to communicate with her to find out what was wrong (yes, I know she is only 19 months old but usually we find a way past the lack of language barrier) and also multiple unsuccessful attempts to console my screaming child I left her crying on my bed and went downstairs to call my hubby. I think at that point I just needed to hear from someone who wasn't going to scream at me. This was soooo out of character for Evie and all the go to remedies had failed. He heard her in the background and said if I needed he could come home for a bit... I was refreshed by the potential for backup should I need it and so I told him to call before he was able to leave just to check in with us in case she had come to her senses. I then headed back upstairs to try again... within a few minutes I was able to calm her down and called off the backup when the offer came around again. This was not the only challenge today. A little later during a diaper change she decided to kick at me the whole time I was trying to change her... I am not a spanker (really the only time I want to spank her is when she has me all worked up and that is exactly when "they" say you should not spank your children) at this time I am usually able to find an underlying reason for the times she acts out and when I let her know I understand that she is (tired, hungry, teething, etc) and we work to alleviate that issue she immediately changes her behavior. She has even started to try to communicate more before just acting out I think because I have worked so much with her. Okay, so a bit off subject here... so back to the diaper change... she had me so frustrated after I tried several times to tell her that it was not okay and that it was not making me very happy etc that I finally just said to her "if you do not stop kicking me, then I am going to swat your bottom". I didn't yell it, I just said it very calmly but seriously. I am not sure if she knew what it meant exactly but some note of it got through to her and she stopped. At this point I thought that we both could use some time out of the house so we went for a run/walk for about 30-40 minutes. I am still trying to get more consistent with my exercise as I have not lost all the baby weight and I think I might be out of range for that excuse now. Nevertheless, I have decided that I would like to get to a more suitable weight before I would get pregant again so I better get going! On another topic, I never get sick, except that two Sundays ago I went from being fine at church to not feeling so hot and taking a nap after lunch and then ending up with a fever of 103 overnight and a sore throat (I mean, it was nasty looking - white spots and everything). Well, the fever went down to 101/100 on Monday and D stayed home from work to take care of Evie because, well if you have ever tried to do anything normal with a fever you know it is not fun. By Tuesday I was much better with just a slight fever maybe 99 ish and no sore throat. Well, then by Wednesday I had a cough but was pretty much better besides that... a week and a half later, I am still coughing. I probably should get checked out but I never expected it to last this long because like I said, I never get sick - really the last time before this that I got sick, I took all my homeopathy and herbs and stuff and was completely better the next day, I mean I woke up and felt like I had never been sick. Now looking back on this go 'round, I was not as stringent with my attack and maybe that had something to do with it? So the cough, it is in my chest and kind of itchy tickly feeling and so if anyone has any natural tips please share! Okay, so now that I have completely rambled on I will say goodnight because it is now 1:04 am here and I am slightly out of it. I will try to post in the next couple of days as it is our 6th anniversary on Sunday and we are going out to have some couple time Saturday while my parents come spend some time with Evie.

seriously? does she look like she could cause trouble?

The one with the gifts

2009-08-10T00:22:00.008-05:00

This is the front of a baby quilt that I helped piece for a friend.
This is the back of the quilt.

Evie "modeling" the chef's hat and apron that I made for my nephew Isaiah's birthday gift. This is the shoulder bag I made for my sister-in-law for her birthday... I loved the fabrics together, I hope I can find more of the outside fabric.

What a character!

2009-08-01T23:55:00.003-05:00

Okay, so this is my sweet sweet girl! I love her so much. I just have to tell this story that of course has no back up photos. We were out shopping at Old Navy yesterday and little miss was intrigued by the mannequins... she gave them hugs every time she left them and petted the dog. Then we went to Scheels and in the bike section they have kid mannequins too (a little creepy though - they have huge Precious Moments type eyes) and she was grabbing their hands and wanting to take them to show them something I guess. Such a sweet girl, love love love her!

T-shirt skibbies

2009-07-29T23:41:00.004-05:00

Tonight I tried making a pair of undies from one of my hubby's t-shirts using a fave pair for the pattern. This is the before pic...
This is the front after... I ended up cutting too close to the words and so the elastic waist is not like it should be... also the pair I used for the pattern have a bit of spandex in them so the fit is different with the ones I made from a 100% cotton tee... we will see after I wear them a couple times.

This is the back view. I didn't use any elastic around the legs for this try, depending on the material for future pairs I may or may not. It was really a pretty simple project, the longest part was when I had to refill my black thread bobbin on the second leg (I found out it was empty after "sewing" about 2/3 of the way around it... if I hadn't been using bright yellow for the spool thread I probably wouldn't have noticed it until I was all the way around - oh well, minor set back).

Anyways, it was a pretty crafty day all around, I spent from about 10:30 this morning till around 3pm working on quilts with a gal from church who is teaching me, then did the tshirt refashion tonight. Yay me!

Just a note that next time I will try to find a shirt with a bit more stretch or rethink my elastic or style of skibs.

There are no words...

2009-07-23T22:53:00.003-05:00

I happened to have the camera out and caught this little move just in time... boy that will be great for future embarrassing slideshows :) Love her!