Cowgirls & Kidneys

Today has been C-R-A-Z-Y!

First of all, it was cowgirl day at ballet:

Then Three had his big ultrasound to check his kidneys:

And the news was mixed.

Here's a tip if you ever have to take your baby in for an ultrasound: bring your own soft cloth to wipe off the goo. Those little hospital towels are just not soft enough for any baby's sweet soft skin. Have they never heard of fabric softener?

That's about all I've got for today.

I ♥ Post Options!

Yes, I heart post options because I can write today's post tomorrow and still make it look like today. Totally confused? That's because I'm cheating. I'm really writing this on Tuesday and just making it look like it's still Monday. See why I heart post options? :o)

Anyway, "today" (see? now you're in on it too!) I'm having a nightmare of a time making this:

(picture from Little Sesame Knits)

I've borrowed double-pointed needles but since Two apparently has a humongous head, I needed 320 stitches to stay on them and it wasn't working! After a trip to joann's to buy more of the same size needles to put the stitches on (yes, just for two rows, I know) it's looking pretty good and I'm several rows into it.

And here's our muffin tin monday meal of the night:

From top left: applesauce, mashed potatoes w/ onion gravy, carrots,
swedish meatballs from IKEA-yum!, green beans, and olives

Sunday

Two loving her "new" pink converse:

One being super into the cub scout sign:

And a fun version of our weekly Sunday photo....
getting ready to go for a walk on an almost warm day!

A Day of Hearts

Oh. My. Goodness.

I just measured One and he has grown an entire inch in the last five months! Half an inch in the last month alone! What's up with that?!

This morning I went with a friend to pick out a fancy-dancy dress for some special high school functions. We went to Abby's Closet, a fabulous organization. It's not the typical shopping experience because all of the dresses have been donated by people and stores, so they don't necessarily have every dress in every size... You can fall in love with a dress that's not your size or one that has already been snagged by a different girl... It's slightly challenging but she found a fantastic dress. Here's the winner! Isn't she beautiful?!

Maybe Two could learn something from her?
Check out this outfit she put together all by herself...

So of course I have to post about Valentine's! DaddyMan and I went out last night for Valentine's. Tonight we're celebrating with the kids.

We got the "heart"/superman-shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's.

We had a cute assistant chef and ate on our valentine plates:

Chocolate hearts:

A cute baby:

And look at the craftiness DaddyMan put together!

(These are just the heart-shaped chocolates inside an empty toilet paper roll, wrapped in tissue paper and tied with raffia.)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Minty, Chocolate-y Goodness

I usually leave the cub scout activities to DaddyMan, but a recent "derby race" seemed like a special event I should attend. Turns out the race was doing double-duty as a monthly troop (? like I know) meeting which meant it turned into a looooong afternoon. However, they auctioned off a few desserts as a fundraiser and so here, my friends, is the $35 recipe which can be yours ("if you call in the next five minutes!") for the very low price of approximately $3:

The ingredients are brownie mix and crumbled andes mints - yum!

Cook the brownies according to the box directions. About 5 minutes before they are "done", put the crumbled andes mints on top of the brownies and put the brownies back in the oven. That's it! You can leave the andes mints melted chunky or you can spread them around a bit but either way they are delicious!


Now onto some closet crafting I have been doing:

The scarf on the right is something I knit for my aunt. She doesn't know it, but she picked out the yarn! I saw her eyeing it at a trip to Joann's and went back that day to get it. I'm so sneaky! I mailed it off today and I'm so excited because she has no idea that it's coming! She doesn't even know I was working on it. Fun stuff!

The scarf on the left is a different version of this, more of a rag-style. It's headed (another surprise!) for a dear friend and mentor of mine that just moved cross country. I made sure to mention that it was a scarf (he he he) after this fiasco... But I do think I (sort of) figured out what was wrong with the yellow fabric. It was still obnoxious but after changing the thread tension whenever I was over that fabric (something I learned in my sewing class, you can find my teacher's blog here) it worked much better. Needless to say, the leftover yellow fabric is now in the trash.

ps. Could I have used any more parenthesis in this post? (Sorry about that.)

Finishing Touches

Today was Two's half birthday! She's officially three and a half now. My word, how'd she get so big? Here she is with some of her ballet friends before class this morning. Her favorite things about ballet are the poky-poky and "the farm song.... it starts with an F!" (also known as "old macdonald" with a hilarious techno beat)

That's Two on the left. Check out that pose! :o)

I was wondering how we were going to turn the crayon hearts into actual valentines. The website I got the craft from suggested large pop dots from the scrapbook section, but hello, I am a cheap-o and those are a bit spendy. I wanted to use my hot glue gun but wasn't sure about the wax/construction paper/hot glue combo but it worked! I had to use a ton of hot glue and wait until it was completely cooled before I could even think of touching/moving them, but it worked great. And still came off easily when I wanted to peel it off. Perfect!

I added the phrase (a direct copy from the website) "You 'color' my world"

Chow Time

Three's first food!

Thanks Mom!

Sharing Sunday

(RN.1, RN.2, Two, Three, One)

We had friends come to visit this weekend. Friends that are like family to us. We don't get to see each other often but every time we get together, it's like we never spent any time apart. This was also the first time the kids had ever met each other and they all got along so well. We played at the park, hung out at home, and threw the kids all in the tub together...they are our family and I am so honored to include them in our Family Sunday picture.

Freedom of choice

Nursing shirt choices, that is. You see, I really love my nursing shirts from motherhood but haven't liked any of the choices for spring. Throw in the spendy prices of the shirts even if they did end up coming out with some I liked and there you have my dilemma. What's a mom to do? Well, I realized that I do have a double-layer nursing shirt with long sleeves that won't make the cut for spring but gave me a great idea. What if I came up with an under-layer that could go under any shirt, thus making it possible for any shirt to become a nursing shirt? Then I could buy any shirt I wanted! Genius!

I found this shirt in the target pj/workout clothing section for $5.

Then I put it on and marked with dots where I wanted the slits to start and stop and cut my slits. (That's a blue shirt on the inside so it would be easier to see.)

I don't think jersey knit ravels, but just in case I did zig-zag the raw edges. So there you go! I tried it on under a t-shirt and you can't see the edges of the slits at all. I think I'll have to make another one!

Edited March '09: Well, I've made a few of these now and after a few small changes, I have to say, my favorite shirt has the slits all the way on the sides by the side seams (still going up fairly high). It's a muscle-man shirt from the men's underwear section and it's proven to do perfect double duty as a nursing liner and layering shirt...protecting modesty from the top of the shirt to the bottom!

In other news, Three rolled over today! A pretty amazing feat considering I hardly ever lay him on the ground. He is named Three afterall. :o) Too many other little feet for me to be comfortable with it unless I am right there next to him. So, hurray Three! He's such a big boy. As Two says, "he's almost a grown-up now!" Not quite, but he does just happen to be 21 wks today!

Sharing the crafty love

After telling Two that Valentine's Day was this weekend....and then realizing that I actually had an entire extra week more than I thought I did....I decided to finally get my Valentine garland made. I've envisioned it for awhile. Spent too long looking at my felt color choices. Given up on it for awhile. And then when I finally decided to go for it, the color I had chosen was completely cleaned out!

But not to fear, LUCY to the rescue! (Yes, I am on a first-name basis with the lady at the cutting counter at Joann's. Jealous?) Apparently felt comes on a bolt too! Who knew? Not only that, it is much cheaper on the bolt than in those 25 cent sheets next to the dyed feather boas that I'm allergic to.

So here is my garland! It's all held together (barely) with fabric glue that somehow never quite works for me. Maybe it's the 24hr wait time involved...

(hearts: fushia, baby pink, and sparkle white felt and letters: sparkle black felt)

In the picture that was my inspiration, some of the hearts were made into a ponytail holder. This was what I was going to do for Two, only, in a moment of craziness, I decided to let her cut out her own felt hearts! I drew the patterns on little felt squares and let her cut them out. She did a pretty good job, although she did describe her shapes as "monsters" so maybe we should work on our shapes a little bit more, BUT, I asked her if I could clean up her shapes and it all turned out fine. Throw in a yellow ribbon (of course), which makes the whole deal more of a "sherbet" heart, and there you have a fun ponytail holder that Two actually made herself!

(hearts: shocking pink, orange, and baby pink felt - pony tail elastic - yellow grosgrain ribbon)

And that my friends, is how I am passing the crafty love down to my daughter.

kuh-ray-zee

Yes, absolutely, 100% crazy. Why? Because we started hosting cub scouts tonight! Yes, DaddyMan and a fellow DaddyFriend are co-leading the cub scouts....at our house!

Oh. My. Goodness.

But it sounds like they will be fantastic leaders. Their games and activities looked like so much fun. So fun that Two really wanted to be a cub scout so bad tonight. But something about a little sister and a big brother/Important Scout didn't sound like a great mix, so as much as I wanted to hang out and watch the craziness (see how good I'm doing at staying out of it?), I knew I had to get Two out of there. Fortunately, my mom lives close so we went over there and they rocked and talked and snuggled in the rocking chair the whole time.

Here's BEFORE:

Here's AFTER:
Do you see them?! Do you see the two little teeny patches that I sewed onto One's brand-spankin'-new cub scout shirt?! Wow! Scouting for Food and Pinewood Derby! One can't even wear his shirt until the end of this month but look at him go!

Let me just say though, that those two little patches were a BREEZE compared to DaddyMan's patches for his leader shirt! I paid to have One's patches sewn on but opted to sew on DaddyMan's myself. Thought I would save a little money. Ugh. I'm not very good with a thimble so I usually end up ditching it which means, after two days of sewing, my fingers are killing me and I still don't have all of his patches on! That additional $25 doesn't sound so bad now. Maybe tomorrow I'll finally have before/after's of his shirt. I can promise you, the difference is much more noticeable than One's two teeny (but very proud) patches!

ps. Sra M wore her apron again today!

Half-time fun is not half the fun!

And the weekly photo of the chickies...