Monday, August 31, 2009

Tie-Dye & Youth

I love our youth!
And they love my kids!
My kids love them too!

So at the End-of-Summer Party
they play soccer together,
take them down HUGE homemade slip-n-slides
made even more slippery with dawn dish soap...
(hello, that totally counts as a bath too! :o) )
and help them make tie-dye!


(tie-dye kits that include turquoise and/or fushia will always be bright and vivid!)


Everyone wore their shirts to church yesterday
(We are a fun church!)
and here's what my kiddos sported:


As a tangent:
Any babysitter I've had,
which I admit is not many,
are all from our youth group.
When people ask for babysitter suggestions,
you guessed it,
it's always someone from the youth group!

I've often wondered how people
who don't go to church
find babysitters!

So here is my unsolicited advice:
If you ever need a babysitter, ask
a) high school teacher
b) a church go-er

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Bye-Bye Monkey!


Today we sent our monkey off to his new owner.




We gave it an extra hug to pass on to its preschool burn victim.



Bye bye Monkey! Be good!



ps. Reason #51 why I love my town: The man at the post office let my kids actually stamp the package! You know, the official punch stamp with the date and originating zip code and all that? That one! So cool!

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Quilt-Along: Week 3

This week's assignment was to sew all of our strips together
into big strips of six different fabrics.

Guess what?!?

I'm behind!

I have half of the assignment done:



And the other half lined up "randomly"
(yeah right, I'm too nerdy for that)
and ready to go:


I'll catch up by next week!


Little Bit Funky Quilt Along Week 1
Little Bit Funky Quilt Along Week 2
Little Bit Funky Quilt Along Week 3

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

December 7th

The December 7th pocket is on the advent calendar!

This cute little pocket took a mere 2 1/2 hrs to create.
Are you jealous?

It will be so fabulous when it's done!
But at 2 1/2 hrs a pocket + several accessory patches...
I still have prob 50+ hrs to go!

Ugh.
122 days until Christmas!

Monday, August 24, 2009

Not Me Monday



It's that time again!

It was not me who went to a public restroom at the mall with all three of my children only to realize that with only single stalls, there was nowhere to fit a stroller.

Nope.

So it was definitely not me who decided that the only option was to go potty with the stall door wide open so I could keep an eye on my baby.

In a very busy mall? Where anyone could walk in at any moment?!?

No way!

I did not potty faster than I have ever pottied in my life.

I did not say a quick prayer that no one would enter this restroom while I was not pottying so publicly.

And I have never been more grateful to have a very public restroom all to myself!

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Sunday

Ummm, that would be the ocean behind my babies...
not that you can tell.
It was so foggy but tons of fun!

Friday, August 21, 2009

Best Buds at Six

One's best buddy turned six this week.
Here's his gift:


Spiderman jammies! The spider on the shirt is black felt that I cut out and glued on with fabric fusion glue. (Love that stuff!) I don't know if you can see, but the spider is also in the blue squares on the pants. The fabric was on clearance for $4/yd! I just about passed out with excitement. I actually bought the rest of the bolt so I'd have enough to make these exact jammies for One for Christmas.

(What? Christmas?!)

One and Two wrapped the present. It actually turned out pretty good! They were quite proud.

(It was a water party of course. We don't generally go places in bathing suits. :o) )

I know this isn't the best picture but I had to include it because this is what our playdates are usually like:

If you can't tell, it's Boy, Boy, Two, Boy, Boy, Boy, Boy, Boy, Boy. If you count that up, that's EIGHT boys and Two! ha ha!


And let's not forget this little cutie!

His new name for the moment, Boy #9 At The Party!
(Formerly known as Three.)

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Quilt-Along: Week 2

This week's assignment was to cut all of our fabric into 2 1/2" strips.
Here you go!
You just can't beat the perfect edge of fabric that's been rotary cut. I love it!

And I definitely think that cutting fabric with the rotary cutter should absolutely count as a core strengthening exercise! Anyone with me here?
Add Image

Monday, August 17, 2009

Not Me Monday



I love reading MckMama's Not Me Monday posts so I thought I would give it a try!

It was definitely not me that went grocery shopping and then only managed to put away only the items that needed refrigerated before I got distracted to another task.

So it was definitely not me that found my baby, the very next day, eating a peach from the bag of groceries that I did not leave out. That wouldn't be safe. An 11 mos old? Munching on a whole peach? Nope, not me!

Obviously I did not grab my camera and proceed to take pictures of the peach eating goings on rather than picking up my baby and actually putting the groceries away.

I also did not tell said baby to only eat one peach and then laugh when he managed to wrangle a second peach and take a bite of that one too. No, I'm far too frugal to eat the cost of a peach for my child's fun experience and adventure with food.

And at lunchtime, when I was cleaning off the table, I most definitely did not wipe the food crumbies onto the floor and then proceed to let the dog in to "clean it up" along with all the other food that Three drops on the floor. Definitely not something I would ever do!

Besides, my dog would never run directly to the table the instant she's invited inside. Never! That might make you think we used her as our personal vacuum cleaner or something and we just would not do that.

Nope! Not me!

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Happy Sunday

Look who made it into a picture...
ME!
I actually exist!!!

You know, getting everyone to look at the same time
is quite a task!
I think I did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself.
Anyway, this was the one and only shot
which is why, if they aren't looking, they are at least smiling....

I love that it's the middle of August and One and Two both have on their fleeces. One is sporting a nice fleece hat too and Two....well, she has taken to fixing her own hair and I am not about to step in the way of that! If you heard her scream absolute bloody murder this afternoon because she thought there was a bug on her...oh the drama. So I will just let her hair be her hair. It says so much about who you are. I think Two's might say, "I'm an independent little girl that's terrified of imaginary spiders..."

Oh, and check out the pensive finger-at-the-mouth-while-seriously-contemplating-the-world look of Three.

This is my new favorite picture!

Friday, August 14, 2009

Baked Potato Salad

Our town has free concerts in the park every Thursday night during the summer. Gran meets us there and we take turns bringing dinner for everyone. A new favorite has become the Baked Potato Salad. Although why it's called a "salad" I certainly don't know...

But today's your lucky day because today I'm going to share the recipe!

You'll need:
*5 lb bag of red potatoes
*10 slices of bacon
*1/2 C sour cream
*1/2 mayo
*1 C shredded cheese
*olive oil
*Montreal Steak Seasoning

First up, cube your red potatoes and drizzle them with olive oil. I like to collect mine in my big pyrex mixing bowl, drizzle, then stir. Looks like this:



When the potatoes are coated with olive oil, pour them out onto a baking sheet (I usually need two baking sheets) and "sprinkle" (ie-cover!) with Montreal Steak Seasoning. You could also add salt and pepper. It will look like this.



Put them in the oven at 400 for 30 mins, stirring about halfway through.


Meanwhile, start frying up your bacon! (I got a 2lb package and have enough bacon for this recipe and some delicious BLT's for lunch tomorrow.) In my opinion, crispy is BEST!
(Please note that the best time to dig through your recycling for an empty can to drain the bacon grease into would be before you start cooking the bacon and not during the whole process.)


Should I tell you that my grandmother always used that old bacon grease to make her green beans with??? No? Well, they were the best green beans EVER!


After the bacon has cooled, chop them up into 1/4 inch-ish pieces. Or break them up. It's no-stress, so don't stress!



Now, when your potatoes come out of the oven, they will look like this:
)


Fabulously delicious! Be warned, you will be tempted to eat a few (or a lot!). That's okay! These are a perfectly good side dish on their own (They are called "Life Potatoes" at our house after being randomly named by One.)

So here is the hardest part....WAITING! The potatoes need to cool off, we don't want our cheese to melt when we mix everything together. Here's my best tip: walk away from the kitchen! Otherwise, you just might eat them all gone -yes, all 5 lbs of potatoes, they are that good- so just walk away and let them cool down.

You could also put them in your fridge like I did, but I didn't really want to mention it because there's no way I'm showing you a picture of the inside of my fridge!

Okay, so with the potatoes cooled off, dump them into your biggest bowl. Add the sour cream, mayo, shredded cheese, and bacon.



Stir together. That's it!




Now if that doesn't look disgusting to you, I don't know what would, but I promise it's Delicious! Serve it hot or cold (I usually do cold so I can make it ahead of time). Feel free to change up the ingredients and make it your own. I hope you love it! We tend to treat it like a real baked potato and serve it with a big salad.

But with all that sour cream and mayo, you just might want to walk around the block a time or two (or ten) when you're done!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

December 6th

Here is the December 6th pocket for the advent calendar I'm working on:



And this sad picture makes it really obvious how much farther there is to go!


Ugh. I started working on this during my 3-hr glucose test when I was pregnant with Three. Yeah, he's gonna be 11 months old this week.... It's been awhile.

I love love love these kits. I love them. I love our stockings and this advent calendar is going to be so great. I know it will be fun memories for the kids. But as much as I love the finished project, while I'm working on it, I really hate it!

Only 133 days until Christmas!

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Quilt Along: Week 1

I'm so excited to do Little Bit Funky's Quilt Along!
She is sooo my kind of crafter!
"You're supposed to wash your fabric, but I didn't..."
"You can iron your fabric, but I didn't...."
That's my kind of girl!
(actually, I made those quote's up but you get the gist of it...)

So guess what?!?
I didn't wash my fabric.
I didn't iron my fabric.
But what glorious fabric it is!



This week's assignment was to gather all of your supplies,
including TWELVE DIFFERENT FABRICS!!!
That blue/green leafy fabric on the right was my first pick.
Everything else followed.
Quite different from the pink/lime green I thought I was going for!


Wanna Quilt Along?
There's still time! This is only week 1!
It's going to be great and at the end of six weeks or so...
YOU WILL HAVE MADE A QUILT!!!


Little Bit Funky's links:

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Three is Eleven Months Old!

Three is 11 months old today!
Time to start planning another party!



This is the best pic I could get of a wiggly, giggly, 11 mos old!



Here's roughly what the other 49 pictures look like!

(Oops! Blogger is not appreciating me at the moment. Check back later!)
Edited: Here it is! Cute and blurry!

Monday, August 10, 2009

4-3-2-1, Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Two!
You are FOUR YEARS OLD now!


We had a picnic at the park
and you got the straw in your capri sun for the very first time!
"It's because I'm four!" you said.

We decorated the van
and One told you to smile when you looked out the van windows
so every would see it was your birthday.

You picked out your preschool school supplies.
You even got excited about the hand sanitizer
- "magic soap" you call it -
because you are so happy to finally be old enough
to go to school


You picked spaghetti and meatballs
for your birthday dinner
(with stick spaghetti, specifically).

You even had one more present waiting just for you!
You were so surprised and my heart was so happy
because you were not expecting to receive any more gifts.

And because it was your birthday, we finished the day with dessert...
ice cream and chocolate sauce.



Happy Birthday!



In 2008, you were 3 yrs old:


In 2007, you were 2 yrs old:

In 2006, you turned 1 yr old:


This is the day we brought you home from the hospital, Aug 2005:

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Birthday Prep and Two's Party!

Party Day has arrived!
Last minute preparations have been completed.
Here's a run-down of Two's birthday party!

First up, decorations!

The tutorial for these pom-poms is here.
I spent entirely too long in the DollarStore wavering between multi-colored tissue paper and glittery-white tissue paper. I'm glad I went with color!


Some twisted crepe-paper.......Yellow, of course!
Dangling foil princess cut-outs
and this bannerPicture of the table:
(Two leaned in so she could "smile for the cupcakes")


Princesses naturally drink from fine china.
I've been collecting teacups from Goodwill.
This one is Two's favorite:




Okay, on to the party!


When the girls arrived, they started at the pampering table.


Manicures and rings:

We made this little paper of Two's handprints out of construction paper for the girls to put their hands on while they were being polished. It worked great to keep their hands still (and away from their pretty dresses) and is a great keepsake for me!

We used a hair dryer handy so the polish would dry quicker:


Lipstick, blush, and earrings (thank you DollarStore!):


Group picture after some dancing:


One escorted each of the girls during our fashion show:


With her cupcake:


On her last day of being three:



Saturday, August 8, 2009

Kids Grow

I've always wanted a "growth wall" to mark the kids' height as they grow.
We didn't do it at our old house because we knew we would be there for only a few years. If our current house isn't our last house, we'll certainly be here for awhile, so we found a measuring spot on our wall.

But what if we move? We can't exactly bring the wall with us!

Then I saw a great idea at this blog. (It's one of my favorites. You can hunt for the exact post if you'd like. You'll no doubt find many other inspirations over there too!)

I got a 1"x4"x8' piece of wood from the hardware store.
DaddyMan cut them to 6ft and attached two yard sticks.
I bought HomeDepot yard sticks for 61 cents each.
You could pay $7 at Joann's for one's that didn't have a brand name on them
buuuutttttt, did I mention the one's at Home Depot were 61 cents?





Your wood is wider than the yard sticks
so after you attach the yard sticks
you still have room to mark your childs height
and write the date.



Best of all, you never have to leave them behind if you move!