I made a jumper!!!!

So I was looking for different dresses to sew for Breezy and ran across a tutorial for a cutie patootie jumper over at IKATBAG and decided to try it.
I took Breezy with me to pick the fabric, cause she might not wear it otherwise and I did not want to do this to have it hang in the closet forever.
So this is what she chose...

I'm not sure why the picture looks so yellow but the print is a bright bubblegum pink!
So I printed out the pattern and read the instructions and then life happened and it was quite awhile before I got to actually MAKE it. I thought I remebered what to do pretty well, so a couple of weeks ago when we were stuck at home because Breezy was sick I decided to go for it.



I cut out the pattern out of craft paper, which I like cause it is sturdy. If I iron it then it works for several cuttings.

Then I cut out the fabric and THEN I held it up to Breezy to see if it would fit. Well, guess what! It was too short! So I had a little panic and then I cut wide strips from the striped facing fabric and sewed them on the bottom and BAM it was long enough.


I muddled though with lots more mistakes, which I found out later was mostly from following the directions backwards! I should have re-read them!
It turned out cute all the same. Any goofyness is the result of my own inexperience and not the instructions!

I like it so much that I might try to enlarge the pattern and make matching dresses for the big girls! In a different fabric though, I think you have to be 3 to love this one!

Rainy Monday morning

Dark and dreary, dank and grey, it's a yucky start to the day.

It is warmish though so that's good.  Maybe it will clear up later today before I have to go out.

This weekend was filled with Sam's shopping and clothes shopping (and have I mentioned I HATE shopping?). Also with feather gluing and shawl searching and drawer cleaning outing. (is that even a word? I don't think so). AND supurb breakfast making,

And my favorite part, hangin' in our jammies!

I didn't get any sewing done even though I have baby presents to make. I am trying my hand at a tiny bit of quilting, I am trying to make a quilt bib and burp cloth set. It would help if Breezy would stop trying to "help" cut the already cut and sewn pieces!

Good thing she's so cute!

I Confess...

I Confess...
   I read WAAAAAY more than I should. I read when I should be doing other things. I read while I eat, while I wait outside at piano lessons, while I blow dry my hair, while I take a bath, while I watch t.v., while I cook.  Way too much!

I Confess...
   I served lima beans to my family and told them they were "baby butterbeans" so they would eat them.

I Confess...
     That when you see me grocery shopping with one earbud in I am not talking on the phone or listening to music. I am listening to an audiobook.

I Confess...
     I want to throw rocks at the people speeding in their cars down my street while my girls and I are waiting for the bus. SLOW DOWN!!!

I Confess...
     I want to call Child Protective Services on Max and Ruby's parents!

Kids are weird!

Monday Morning Moaning...

well not really. We had a pretty good weekend, even with some of us being sick.  The big girls and I went to a Girl Scouts Cookie Rally in the back of nowhere on Friday evening. Thank goodness for GPS or I would still be wandering around little rural roads trying to find my way out of the maze!
    The big girls had a blast at the rally though. So, that made it worth the effort of getting there.  Then on Saturday we hunted for all the insignia patches we needed for the sashes. We still don't have the flag one, Three stores in Three towns and no one had any of them! I ironed them all on and am now in process of sewing them on. The iron on never sticks for good and it takes too long to sew them all on so I am doing both methods so that the girls can wear them right away. My finger tip and thumb are bruised and sore, and I only got two of them sewn on last night.
     Because Mojo has gotten the same cold that the littlest one has I took over breakfast on Saturday morning. Saturdays are ALWAYS Daddy days at our house and Mojo makes his famous pancakes or his famous waffles.  So I made my not so famous pancakes.

They were declared "good, but not as good as Dad's!"
Humph!
And one of my batches was dark chocolate chip pancakes!
Sunday was grocery shopping that I didn't get to do during the week because of terribly ill child and door to door cookie sales.

How was your weekend? Do anything fun?

Jennifer Thursday!

Cowboy Mouth - "Jenny Says"

*Cough cough*ack*hack*Cough*

The littlest one is sick!

As a bonus, I am starting to feel icky too!

Bleh...

Weekend that was...

This weekend was spent doing chores and crafts and parties and movies and "working" (really playing) outside. Actually it is still the weekend for us as there is no school today.

 Too bad chores don't stop for the weekend.  Even though the work week is done.

This weekend Bee asked me to teach her how to knit. Now we tried this over the summer with no success. So after that, I bought a book about kids knitting and when she asked me about it, I gave her the book and told her to read though it first and then I would sit with her and we would try again. One of the first projects in the book is finger knitting. Basically it is just using your fingers to cast on, and you make a long "knitted" string. She really loves it! She decided to make a bracelet for each of her friends at school. I thought she might like to use some different colored yarn for the different bracelets and went looking in the bottom of my closet where I had seen some pretty variegated pinkish yarn lurking. Imagine my shock and horror to find THIS hiding as well!

A horrid tangle of unfinished barely started projects and unused yarn and needles! At the bottom of the basket was a great wodge of black and white tulle that I used for Breezy's Stinkerbelle costume a couple of years ago. Needless to say a portion of the evening was spent sorting that mess out!
  Breezy and I got started making her valentines for the class exchange.

                              

 We are going to glue the crayons to card-stock with "you color my world" stamped on them. I saw the idea years ago and have been wanting to try it but have never been organized enough to get it done BEFORE the actual holiday.

We also spent some time outside. The weather has been great and we were supposed to be raking, but that was soon abandoned in favor of playing baby birds in the nest!

 The oak trees that provide such nice shade in the summer but drop horrid leaves all over every where the rest of the time!

All in all a really wonderful weekend!

Jennifer Thursday!

Jennifer by Pete and the Pirates!

Yummy Yummy!

Because it is so very cold here today. And poor Sadie had a bad morning.

 I decided to make soft pretzels for their after-school snack. Breezy "helped" me.

 Hers are the "love knots"  We put Sesame seeds on one batch and left the other one with just salt. Remind me not  to let Breezy be in charge of adding the salt next time.

I think they turned out pretty well, and they tasted good too!

I think they liked them!

Into the Closet...

I've spent today catching up with things I should have done over the weekend. I had to spend more time in my closet than I had planned on. See, part of my closet fell down! The shelf/hangy part just collapsed. Of course it collapsed on my husband who was trying to fix the broken plastic "thingies" So, I had to pull everything out and he put the shelf/hangy thing back up and then the wonderful man put up ANOTHER whole shelf! So I have been trying to figure out what goes where and what stays and what goes.

I was planning on tackling the closet this spring, but in more manageable chunks... Oh well! At least I have a spanky new shelf in there now !

 Spanky new closet!

New Year

The year stretches ahead of me a long blank paper, waiting to be filled with adventures and misadventures alike. I know that I will blink and find the year stretched out behind me, filled with hastily and densely scribbled passages as well as elaborately written and planned out portions, hurried snapshots and painstakingly laid out portraits. But over, all the same. It is making me melancholy and blue, where I usually greet each New Year with boundless enthusiasm knowing that THIS year I will get it all right. THIS year I will be the well organized, well planned and perfect wife, mother, daughter, cousin, and friend. I usually bounce into the New Year like Tigger or a new puppy. Knocking things over and shedding hair all over the place.

     So this year I am going to try something different. Rather than trying to do better, be better, I am just going to try to slow down and cherish those close to me. To savor the moments I have with those I love and who love me.  To allow them and myself our shortcomings and failings and to love us all anyway. To embrace who we all are and revel in it rather than lament or try to change it. I am going to just enjoy being alive and surrounded by people I love.