Ruthie's Romper, and other things

I'm so excited to have a baby girl! Not only are all the clothes at the store cute, but I can make pretty things for her to wear as well!

I went through my stash of patterns, mostly from Izzy & Ivy Designs, and I only had 1 pattern that was sized for 3 months.  Everything else starts around 12, 18, or 24 months.  Oh well, she will be darling when she turns 1! :)

The pattern I had was Ruthie's Romper.  Oh my gosh, it is so cute!!  It took me a few days to make.  See, I'm a quilter, not a garment/bag maker, so taking a 2 dimensional image and turning it into a 3 dimensional object doesn't click as easily in my brain.  Aside from that little hiccup, the pattern was really well illustrated and written.

Have you been to their blog?  It's so cute and they have some awesome tutorials.  The Ruthie's Romper pattern has you do some shirring at the top of the romper, and I had never done that before.  Their blog had some great tips, links, and info about shirring.  I am now totally addicted.  I'm going to make a couple more things just so I can do it! (dresses, skirts, more rompers....I'll do it if it has shirring!)

Anyway, the romper turned out really great and she looks so dang adorable in it!  Sorry the picture is kind of crappy, but the lighting in her bedroom isn't the best in the morning.  I'm sad you can't really see them, but her socks match the contrasting ruffle of the romper perfectly!

Making this little romper lit the fire under me and I went out and bought 4 different baby clothes patterns.  I love that you can buy separate pieces of baby clothing at the store (Walmart's Garanimals are my favorites).  B has tons of onesies, pants, a few shirts and skirts, etc.  But what she really needs are jackets.  I haven't been able to find any cute baby jackets in my price range (sorry, but I am NOT going to pay $50 for a jacket she'll be able to wear for a month or two), and the jackets that I could find that I kind of liked only came in a set with a onesie and pants to match.  She has tons of pants and onesies.  Literally.  We had to expand her half of the dresser into the drawers in the hall so that all of her clothes had a place to be put away.  (I am not kidding).

So anyway, I went to Joann's and bought some patterns: a couple New Look, a Simplicity, and I think a Butterick (or was it McCall's?).

Correction: I purchased 3 Simplicity patterns and 1 New Look pattern.

 At any rate, I bought some dang cute ones.  I've purchased my fabric, cut out my patterns, and am currently working on making a darling little dress and a pair of pants.  I'll post pictures when they're done.  I'm pretty excited.  :)

What are some of your favorite patterns for kids? I'd love to build up my pattern stash.

"I Never Get New Stuff"

The other day I wasn't feeling up to cooking, so we opted to go to Taco Bell for dinner.  Mike and I each had a $5 box (which, strangely, actually costs $5.49. Explain that to me).  If you've seen the commercials or eaten at a Taco Bell recently, you'll recall that the new deal is that with every $5 box you get a code to submit to win a new PSP Vita.

Mike submitted his code and didn't win.  They claim there's a winner every 15 minutes, or something ridiculous like that, so we decided to save my code until a random, obscure time.  I submitted it last night at 3:05 AM. Yeah, didn't win.  I threw the box away and didn't think anything of it.

Mike got a new Nook Tablet yesterday. Tonight at dinner we were watching Phineas and Ferb on Netflix on the Nook Tablet.  When it was over, Marshall started asking questions about the tablet.

Marshall:  Do you have an iPad like Jana?
Mike: No, this is a Nook Tablet.  It's kind of like Jana's iPad, but different.
Marshall:  Oh.  So where's my new PSP?
Mike:  You mean your old PSP?  It's broken, remember?  I haven't had a chance to fix it yet.
Marshall: No, my new PSP.
Mike: What are you talking about?
Marshall:  I saw the box.  Where's my new PSP?


At this point in the conversation both Mike and I realize he is talking about the Taco Bell $5 box that had a picture of the new PSP Vita on the lid.  Naturally, we start laughing.

Mike: That wasn't a new PSP.  That was mom's dinner from the other day when we had Taco Bell.  She ate all the food out of it.
Marshall: But there was a PSP on it!
Mike: That was just a picture.
Marshall: So I don't get a new PSP?
Mike: No.


Marshall pauses for a moment and looks sad.

Marshall: I never get new stuff!


Mike and I couldn't help it. We lost it.  It was the funniest thing he'd said all day (and there had been some funny things, believe me! He's at that age where everything out of his mouth is slightly silly).

He's still pretty upset that we haven't gotten him a new PSP.  I'm pretty upset I haven't got an iPad, or a baby swing, but it's something I've learned to live with.  Guess he will too.  Poor kid, the lessons they have to learn at age 5.

:)

Good News . . . at last!

We have a couple of great news items to share today!

I got an awesome phone call today.  Remember how I had a second ultrasound last week at my doctor's appointment to check my liver?  Well, today I got a call from my doctor's office, and it turns out that I just have fatty pockets in my liver.  Woohoo!  That's fine with me!  Totally normal from what my doctor tells me.  She did want me to stop by and have more blood drawn (it hurt really bad!!) to test my LFTs, and I should have those results back by next week.  I'm not too concerned, though, because I just had them run in August and everything was normal.  It was a really good day!!

Not our crib, but it looked like this until I painted it.

In other news, I totally accidentally threw away all of the screws for our crib a few months ago when I cleaned out the storage closet.  I think I must have thrown away a box without checking to see if there was anything in it first.  OOPS! my bad!

Anyway, I called the company to order replacements and found out that our crib has been recalled.  At first I was really pissed.  SERIOUSLY?  Now what? Is what I thought.  When I called the recall department, they told me that once they receive the mattress support screw panels, they'll ship me out a new crib.

I couldn't be happier.  A new crib.  Brand, spanking new.  It isn't black, it's walnut, but at this point I don't care!  It's a brand new crib!!  At this point, the only thing I'm really upset about is that I didn't find out until after I spent the time sanding and painting the crib front.  haha

So, that's my good news for today.  All in all, I had a really good day.  Oh!  And, tomorrow I'm having a giveaway, so check back to see how you can enter!!  I'm really excited about it, since it's my first giveaway ever!

What Was I Thinking?!

Today I decided to go to town and clean Marshall's room.  I mean like really clean it.  Like, rip everything out of the room, clean the carpets, wash the walls, clean the blinds, hang a curtain rod, make new curtains, etc.

I don't know what I was thinking!!  I must have had a crazy, hormonal-induced, nesting lapse of judgment moment.  I'm sure it was mostly induced by what the room initially looked like.  I mean, look at it!  It's a crazy hot mess!  He must think that every time I say "clean your room," I really mean "go ahead and trash your room some more."

I threw a ton of crap away.  He got so mad at me when he saw I was throwing some old coloring books and Burger King toys away.

After a few hours of de-junking and reorganizing, I finally managed to drag everything out of the room except for the dresser.  Yes, I even pulled the bed out into the hall.  I even dropped a shelf on my foot!  It hurt like crazy, and for a second I thought I'd broken it, but realized that I could walk around after a few moments, so I kept on pushing through it and got the room cleared out.

Mike came home with the Rug Doctor (we own one, but it's been "living" at the shop for the past few weeks) and helped me clean the carpet.  Now the room smells nice, the carpet looks a million times better, and it doesn't look so much like a little boy inhabits it.

Sorry about the poor quality of the "after" picture.  Marshall fell asleep before I could take one with the lights on.  I'm still trying to figure out the placement for a few things, like the baby's crib and my glider and possibly my $7 lamp from IKEA, but other than that the room is organized!  Hoorah!!

I'm hoping to get a curtain rod hung and new curtains made before the baby comes.  Right now we're using a queen sized sheet folded in quarters stuffed in the top of the blinds to keep the light out of the room at night.  It's been working okay for a while, except that it's starting to fall down, and it doesn't look fabulous, and the anal personality in me wants the room to look fabulously perfect.

Hopefully I'll be able to get the crib set up soon, and the glider put back together (we painted it a few weeks ago) with new cushions (which I plan on making this weekend, hopefully).  Then I can focus on cleaning blinds and hanging new curtains.

Costume Fail

THE IDEA:  Mario Riding Yoshi.  I have my husband to thank for this one!

THE PROGRESS:

1. Make up your own pattern.  First I sketched out what I wanted it to look like, then I drew all of the pattern pieces out on white bulletin board paper that I bought at Office Depot for like $7.  I have plenty left over for more projects in the future.
2. Practice with muslin.  Muslin's pretty cheap, especially if you buy it at Joann's with a coupon, so I practiced with some extra muslin I had rather than cutting into my expensive fabric.  (Okay, I got the quilting solids for $7/yd, but still....didn't want to have to go buy more after screwing it up.)
3. Once you realize that the muslin pieces work, do it all again with the real fabric.  Repetitive, boring, but well worth it. 
4. Figure out how to piece the individual components all together.  This was tricky and required some improvisation on my part.  Being a quilter, I am SO not good at 3 dimensional items, so this was a HUGE challenge for me.
5. Stuff the sucker.  This project took a TON of stuffing!  Almost 2 giant bags full.
6. If you do it right, then everything will turn out nicely.  If not, repeat steps 3-5 until you get it right.

Seems like cake, right?  Hahahahaha! Here are some shots (taken with my iPhone 4) of my progress.  I didn't take any pictures of Step 1 or 2, but 3 through 6 are pretty comical ;)

So, first I made the tail.  It turned out pretty good, I thought.  Then I pieced the body together and somehow managed to attache it to the head.  That was really hard.  I don't want to ever do that again!


Then I realized that Yoshi needs arms. Duh!  Brain fart on my part.  I drew up a quick template, played around with some muslin (steps 1 and 2) and then went to town with my green quilting cotton.  I think the arms turned out pretty good.  Again, attaching the hand to the arm was pretty tricky, and I did it twice!  I was pretty impressed with myself. ;)

I wanted to make sure that Yoshi's head looked okay stuffed, so even though I wasn't finished with the entire body, I went ahead and stuffed the head.  Mike didn't think I got it quite right, but I think it looks okay.  I put extra stuffing in the cheek areas to give the illusion of the puffy cheeks (see the picture above of what he really should look like).

It was about at this point that Mike and Marshall both pointed out to me that:
a) I had forgotten to sew Yoshi's spikes into the seam when I pieced the back to the head AND
b) there was a weird bump thingy on the front of Yoshi's head, near where the eyes would go.  I wasn't too worried though, because I knew that I was hand-stitching the eyes on to the head, and that they would cover up the weird bumpy thing.

These are the eyes.  Didn't they turn out so great?!  I was really happy with them.  I was originally going to applique on a piece of black for the pupils, but decided that the buttons looked so much cuter.

During the Sunday session of LDS General Conference I decided to work on the pants while I listened to the talks.  They were all really good talks, and I think that my attention was not completely on what I was doing, because I totally screwed up on the pants multiple times!!

First, I sewed the front closed.  Like, seriously, how do you sew pants wrong?  I know how pants work.  You have to be able to walk in pants, so clearly you don't sew the center side seams together, right? hehe If only I could have remembered that!  I had to re-sew the stupid pants like 4 times because I kept sewing the wrong seams!

Do you like my photo of my screwed up pants?  Yeah, I had a great laugh when it happened the first time!

After I got the pants right, finally, I let the project sit for a week.  I picked it up today and made an executive decision to just sew the tail to the body and stuff the sucker up.  So I did.  This is the end result.

I call him Yoshi Slug.  Yeah, he looks kind of sad, doesn't he?  I'm hoping that I can just unpick the tail from the body, pull the stuffing out, and try something else.

Until then, I am calling this my first (hopefully not annual) Halloween costume FAIL.  Marshall will be going as Harry Potter instead, which is actually a good thing because it is way less stressful than Mario riding Yoshi!

Do you have a Halloween costume fail?  I'd love to hear about it! Leave a comment telling me about yours, or a link to your blog post if you have one!

Being Domestic - sorta

One of the pitfalls of renting a tiny split level home (in a 4-plex) is that there is hardly any room for storage.  We'd have food storage, if we had somewhere to put it.  Our kitchen is small.  Our bedrooms are small.  Every available closet shelf is used for storing things we don't need right now but might/probably need in the future.

In fact, Marshall doesn't even have access to his closet.  It is chock-full of crib parts and baby toys, boxes of clothes he doesn't fit in anymore, and other miscellaneous kid/baby-related items.

The sad thing is, I have gone through every closet in our house (except the linen closet in the hall - it's on my To-Do list) and thrown/given away TONS of things in the 2 1/2 years we've lived here.  I am constantly amazed at how much crap I find to through away each time I do it.  But, now we're at the bottom of the barrel.  I've gotten rid of everything I can think to get rid of.  I honestly about killed myself the last time I went through our storage cupboard under the stairs.  It's the hardest to go through.  You have to drag everything out, go through all the different boxes, then rearrange it and hope you end up with a little more space than you had before.

This process explains why every time food storage items go on sale (or Macey's has a case lot sale) Mike says "No, we don't have anywhere to keep it."  It makes sense, but I forget every year.

So, when we saw that corn was on sale for $14 for 48 ears at our local food co-op, I was surprised when Mike said "Let's do it.  We can freeze it for food storage."

What?!

Who are you and what have you done with my husband?

So that is how we spent this afternoon.  We blanched the ears of corn, took all the kernels off the cob, and bagged them into freezer bags.  I made 21 bags with 1 1/2 cups in it, and 1 bag with 2 cups.  33 1/2 cups of corn, and a newly cleaned out freezer, later, I now have plenty of corn to last me through the winter.  No more spending $1.50 on the cheap generic brand of corn that doesn't have a resealable bag and gets freezer burn 5 seconds after you open the thing.

I can't tell you how proud I am that I've finally done something "domestic" in preparation for winter.  If we had the stuff (and space) to can, I'd probably be doing that like crazy too.  Someday, someday.  When I have a house of my own with its own giant food storage area in the basement, then we'll see how much canning I can get done.  Until then, I'm going to have to be content with putting up corn in the freezer.  :)

The Cat's out of the Bag!

So....those of you who happen to read this and/or follow me on Twitter might recall that I had a bit of a minor freak-out on Wednesday.

It all started on Tuesday when we decided that we were finally going to purchase our building plans for our house.  We were toying with the idea of paying the company to do the plan changes, or having our nephew do them instead (our nephew has agreed to do them, since the city engineer has to approve/certify the plans anyway, so why pay the extra $2000, right?)  We were all sorts of excited to be getting ready to buy our plans.

This started the first phase of the freak-out.

How much is building going to cost?

Will we get approved for a loan?

How long will it take to build?

etc., etc., etc.


Add to this the stress of finding a sitter so that I can go to Quilt Market in SLC.  PLUS playing catch up on my quilting after taking a week off in April for my grandfather's funeral (Did I mention that?  He was a great man....will do a post later about him when I have more than 2 minutes)  PLUS! I haven't exactly been feeling well lately.  I've been really tired, like the tired where 8 hrs of sleep still isn't enough.

I went home Wednesday in the middle of the day and discovered something that made me freak out a bit more than before.


I took 4 tests.  Yes, that's right. 4.  I wanted to be SURE.


Well, since pretty much everyone knows already.......


Marshall is going to be a big brother!  He is super excited, as are Mike and I.  We're freaking out a little about where baby is going to go in our tiny little split-level rental, but have already started dejunking and throwing things away in an effort to get the house ready.

Yes, baby won't be making an appearance until somewhere between Christmas and just after New Year's (secretly I'm hoping for December over January - hello tax credit!), but I want to get as much done as I can while I still feel good.....and before I look like a gigantic whale.

I don't think Mike cares what it is, but secretly I am hoping for a girl.  I would love a little girl. And then I could make a TON of cute clothes for her!  Boys just don't look good in cute ruffly skirts/dresses.  haha


Also......shhhhhh! We haven't told my parents yet....we're waiting for this weekend, so if you see them, don't say anything!! :)

3 Years - the party at the lake

In my previous posts (here and here), I mentioned how it had been 3 years since the passing of our nephew.  We celebrate his life every year.  Two years ago, we went to the lake.  Last year it wasn't good weather, so we went to my MIL's house.  This year, the weather was supposed to be nice, so we went to the lake again.

IT. WAS. FREEZING!!!!!

The wind was blowing, and it was pretty cold, but it was still fun.  The kids all got their kites out and even some of the adults had fun flying them!

That would be Marshy's Spongebob Squarepants kite flying.  He actually did pretty good flying it by himself, until it got stuck on a rock.

The kids ventured out to the water.  My child, naturally, wanted to take his shoes and socks off immediately and run out and frolic in the freezing cold water.  Of course, his other family members encouraged him in this pursuit.  I didn't much care, as long as he didn't fall on his butt and get soaking wet. (Does that make me a bad parent? haha)

Mike assembled his X-Wing Fighter kite (from Star Wars). Yes, I know it's geeky.  Yes, I know that we also happen to own Darth Vader's Tie fighter in kite form.  And yes, they are both put together and currently hanging out in our bedroom.  (I'm trying to convince him to hang hooks from Marshy's ceiling and keep them in there!)

Here's the man, flying his X-wing

And the Munchkin flying his dragon kite.  Oh, yeah.  Did I mention he has a dragon kite?  Yeah, we have 4 kites at our house.....That's definitely not too many, is it? haha

And here's another picture of the child, again, standing in the freezing cold water.  Notice the snow-covered mountains in the background?  Yeah, it was COLD!

We had a blast, though.  We roasted hot dogs over a fire, ate lots of junk food, and promptly packed up and left when it started to rain!

I made it!!

So, you know that never ending list I thought there was no way in HELL I'd finish?  Yeah, I finished it!!!!!

Living room clean?  CHECK
Presents wrapped?  CHECK
Mom's present made?  CHECK
Quilted 3 quilts for clients?  CHECK
Bound 3 other quilts for clients?  CHECK
Quilted 2 quilts for SIL?  CHECK
Camera/Camcorder charged & ready?  CHECK

So the only things that didn't get done were the friend presents (They will be "New Year's" cards instead of Christmas cards, probably!) and I didn't quilt/bind the Christmas quilt I made....which is no big deal, because I hadn't planned on them getting done anyway. ;)

This weekend should be fun!  Christmas officially in 5 mins (but present unwrapping happens in T-5 hrs 35 mins).  Breakfast at Lola's house at 7.  Presents with Grandma & Grandpa P at 10.  Lunch & presents with Nana & Pop-pop at 1.

Sunday, church (but who really wants to go to church the day after Christmas?  Yeah, us neither....but we'll probably drag ourselves there for the first hour).

Monday, a little work, then pre-wedding party with the whole fam-damily at my mom's house in SLC.  Dinner at 5.

Tuesday, a little more work, then wedding reception for my cousin at 7:30 at her parents' house in SLC.

Anyone noticing how frequently I'll be driving from Spanish Fork to SLC?  Yeah.....not looking forward to the freeway this weekend, since it's totally ripped up and under construction, but it should be fun once we make it there!

I promise to take lots of pictures and post them!! :)


MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Christmas Readiness Update

Remember the list from my last post?  Well, I've actually finished a few things from it!  (I know, you're all gasping in surprise, and then laughing, that I've actually finished something. Go ahead and laugh. It won't hurt my feelings.  I'm laughing too! haha)

So, here's what I've finished:

Quilted 2 quilts for clients (1 quilt left!!!)
Bound 3 quilts for clients
Halfway finished making my mom's present (hoping to finish tonight)

I did clean the kitchen, which isn't quite the living room, but it's close.... hoping to get the living room tomorrow

I also found the camcorder, and all it's charging components.  Haven't plugged it all in yet....will do so tomorrow.  Same with the camera (charging cables are at work, instead of home)

Tomorrow I'm hoping to finish the last client quilt before Christmas, and do both of my SIL's quilts.  I also have a small quilt for my MIL, which shouldn't take more than a few minutes to do. This would leave me with OOOOOODLES of time on Friday to wrap presents, quilt and bind the quilt for my family (well.....at least quilt it! haha) and possibly even get our Christmas cards out in the mail this week (although I honestly wouldn't hold my breath on that one...sorry peeps!)

Not sure if any of you who read my last post actually were wishing me luck, but it sure does feel like it, because I am feeling like I've gotten a lot completed....although my list still looks like it came from Hades....

I'm so not ready!

I am so not ready for Saturday.  For those of you who may have forgotten, Saturday is Christmas.  yep, It's in just a few days.

I still have to:

Clean the living room
Wrap all the presents
Make my mom's present
Quilt 3 quilts for clients
Bind 3 other quilts for clients
Quilt 2 quilts for my SIL
Quilt & bind a quilt for my family's Christmas (new tradition I madly decided to start)
Find the charging cable for the camera and video camera and charge said electronics
Buy and ship our friend gifts (they so won't get there on time...sorry guys!)

Yeah, the list is daunting.

But, I have managed to send off 1 present already in the mail.  I'm really hoping I can finish everything else without having to spend the next three days without any sleep.  Wish me luck!

Overheard at our house

Munchkin: Dad, McDonald's or Wendy's?
Dad: McDonald's.
Munchkin: McDonald's or Tokyo?
Dad: Tokyo! Of course!
Munchkin: WRONG! You only get two choices. McDonald's or Wendy's, and Wendy's is closed. So.....McDonald's?
Dad: Fine.
Munchkin: YAY! McDonald's!

Christmas is Coming!

Oh my gosh, I'm crazy!

I just bought Jo-Ann's completely out of cute little Christmas stitching kits.  And my goal?  Yeah, to have it all done by Christmas.  I'm insane.


Also, I'm working on a really cute pattern (coming soon....eventually someday when I figure out how to format it using Photoshop and Illustrator!) for a customizeable calendar.  Oh yeah, it's cute.  Can't wait to share some sneak peaks with everyone.

Also, I bought a pattern by Melly & Me for Ruddy (a reindeer with a red nose).  He's A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E!  I want to make him ASAP.

PLUS, I've decided to make a quilt for my cousin who is getting married.  Yep.  That's right.  And her shower is in a few weeks.  Yeah.  I know, I'm crazy.

I'd also like to make a lot of the gifts that I will be giving this year.  Of course, I do have several already made that were leftovers from last year, but I still have a lot to do.

I thought I was all prepared and ahead of things, but no!  Christmas has crept up on me faster than I thought it would.  YIKES!  Wish me luck!  More updates to follow, I hope!

Bad Things Come in 3's

I don't know who said it, but whoever said it deserves to be shot.

"Bad things come in 3's" 

Yeah, let's see how many bad things we can have happen to us.  Why not say "Bad things come in 1's", huh?  That would be so much better!

And, actually, now that I think about it, for me, at least, bad things have come in 4's lately.

First there is my car:  I need a new muffler.  Never mind that I replaced it 2 years ago.  And that the one I replaced was the FACTORY muffler that was was 12 years old.  Don't you think the new muffler should have lasted more than, oh, 2 years?  Yeah.  Me too.

Then there is my computer:  I've had issues with the corner of the screen case and the hinge for about a year.  The screw that holds the case together was stripped, so it's been missing for a while.  The hinge has slowly been breaking.  But I have't had any trouble with it for months, so I didn't worry too much.  Besides, I don't have "droppage" coverage at Best Buy, so I couldn't really take it in to get it fixed because, even though the damage wasn't caused by a drop, they would not have believed me.  Thursday night I closed my laptop, took it home from work, and then couldn't open it back up.  Wanna know why?  The hinge was totally broken.  The metal frame inside the plastic case had snapped and twisted in half, breaking, and making it impossible to hold the right lower side of the screen together.  I was so depressed.  Laptops are expensive!  And I can't afford to not have my work computer right now, when it's my busiest time of the year.  UGH.

Hubs fixed my laptop so that it's at least functioning, but I can't close it. Ever.  It now has to live at the shop.  I'm going through some serious computer withdrawls at home.  My phone is great, but you can only look at certain things online with it.  :(

So, once the computer was permanently installed at the shop, I went home, determined to sew since I couldn't do my normal computing stuff.  Well, I recently got my machine fixed and the old man who fixed it totally screwed up the tension on it.  I didn't ask him to fix the tension.  I asked him to fix the broken hand wheel.  Yet, he seemed to think that he needed to adjust my perfect tension to something less than perfect.  OH I was pissed to say the least.  I had to loosen my tension significantly, and hope that I don't have any more issues with it.  I have seriously never sewn with my tension set to 1.25, but that is where it currently is.  Factory setting was at a 3.0.  He had it set to a 5.25!! 

Lastly:  The Munchkin woke up this morning sad.  He opened his DS up and discovered that it was broken.  Oh, he can still use the touch screen, but the upper screen is cracked.  Sad day.  Luckily Hubs knows where to purchase replacement parts online.  In addition to purchasing a new upper screen, he also bought a new housing unit for him (it will be blue instead of silver now).  My DS Lite has had a broken hinge for about a year, so we also bought me a new housing unit.  Munchkin is so excited to have a "new" blue DS.  He was all smiles when we showed it to him.

Now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that bad things really don't just happen in 3's, and that there are 2 more electronics-related bad things coming my way.  That would not be cool!

Just a Little Stressed

I don't know why I do this to myself, but it seems that I always take on a little more than I can handle every few months.

Like, we're having our Annual Christmas Open House at Sweetbriar on November 4th.  So of course I would like to have some festive projects done in time to display.  Like my Fat Quarterly quilt-along quilt.  It's Christmas fabrics, so it would go perfectly, yes?  That's what I thought! :)

I also want to have my calendar protoype made up.  Yeah, so not going to happen, but I can dream, can't I?  I really would love to have it done.  I've only been working on it for, oh, over a year. 

I've also signed up for NaNoWriMo again.  It starts Nov. 1st.  You're supposed to start working on a new project.  So what does this mean?  That I have 100 pgs written on another project already, with a hopeful 150 pgs or so to go, and I would like to have it finished by the end of this month.

Also, I have 14 quilts at the shop waiting to be quilted, which I would like to have quilted by the end of the month.  1 of them belongs to me.  It's the cable quilt I started earlier this year for a class I took.  I really would like to have it finished by the end of the year.

At least I got my laundry (mostly) folded, and my kitchen cleaned up.  I feel like I'm in a little less of a mess now that the kitchen is clean and the laundry is folded. 

A funny thing happened the other day.....

The other day at work, Marshy was tired.  It was a cold, rainy day. You know the kind, when all you want to do is snuggle down and watch a movie.  That's just what Marshy did at work.  We pulled out his couch, folded up a quilt to use as a pillow, and wrapped him up in a nice, heavy jean quilt while he watched his movie (I think it was Duck Tales, but I'm not totally sure.).

He also had been eating his BK Kids meal.  The dogs could apparently smell it.  They wanted some food.

They inched a little closer, in the hopes of snagging some tasty chicken nuggets.  Bella, the little dog on the left, is notorious for snatching food right out of his hands when he isn't paying attention.

After a few minutes he realized what was going on.  He sat up, saw me with the camera, saw the dogs, and that was game over. 

I'm a Bad Mom.....

We had a birthday party for Marshy tonight.  Do you think I took any pictures?  NO!  Did I have a camera with me?  YES! I had the Nikon. The Kodak's battery was dead, so I got the Nikon out.  I am such an idiot.  I do this all the time. 

He was so cute, too.  He loved opening all the presents....even the clothes!  Buzz Lightyear was definitely the prize winner though.  We got him the little karate-chop-action action figure.  He went to sleep holding him.  yeah, that's a pretty good sign he likes his toy. 

He also got some monster trucks from Nana and Pop-pop (to go with the Monster Truck playmat I made him).  He loved that, too.  So much that he wouldn't let anyone else touch it or be near it or play with it!  Silly boy needs to learn how to share.

I also made 46 cupcakes, and a round cake.  I brought home 10 cupcakes and the round cake.  I figure that's pretty good, right?

Well, I guess I'll just have to take pictures of him playing with all of his presents later.  His aunts, uncles, cousins, and other grandparents all gave him some pretty cool stuff, too.  He's pretty stoked about the birthday haul he got this year.  (YAY!)

Yes, they assign homework to Preschoolers

Marshall starts preschool officially tomorrow.  We had orientation on Thursday, and his teacher assigned homework.  She handed out an "All About Me" booklet with some of the pages to fill out, and a boy-shaped stick for Marsh to decorate to look like himself.

We went camping this weekend, Labor Day, up the canyon.  I took the homework with us, but Marshy was having so much fun riding his bike and playing with the other kids that we totally forgot to do it until tonight, at 9 PM.  I know, I'm such a good mom, right?

Anyway, here are some pictures of what he did:

The stick is actually one of the better pieces.  I love how big he drew the eyes.  I told him just to put dots, but he had to have circles!

I had to hold his hand to draw the 3.  Is that cheating?

Dad is on the left, Marsh on the right, and I'm the big head right in the center.  Gee, thanks!

His favorite TV show is Phineas and Ferb.

His favorite toys are his toy cars

If he could have any pet he would have a puppy.

His favorite food is Froot Loops (they actually look pretty accurate!)

We showed Mike once Marsh was done, and Mike tried really, really hard not to laugh.  Drawing has not really been Marshy's strong point.  Need him to do something on the computer?  He's your guy.  Draw?  Not so much.

I hope his teacher appreciates the artwork as much as I do!

Why do I even bother?

Today was $2 Tuesday at Thanksgiving Point.  We've been promising Marshy for months that we'd go to the Dinosaur Museum there, which he LOVES, but have always put it off because it costs us $30 to take our whole family (all 3 of us). 

I figured today would be a good day because it was the first day of school everywhere.  No one will be at the museum on the first day of school, right?

WRONG!

The place was PACKED.  Literally.  Stay at home moms and dads with their little kids, some too little to fully appreciate the awesomeness of the dinosaur museum (like, 3-months-old-and-sleeping-in-the-car-seat-in-the-HUGE-stroller-that-nearly-ran-us-over-a-couple-of-times too young).

We waited for nearly 10 minutes just to pay to get in.  That should have been my first sign that this day was going to suck.  They were also doing oatmeal taste testing if you filled out a survey.  What?  Seriously?  Oatmeal? Yuck!  And it was totally slowing down the progression of the line.  Tired of standing there, we pressed forward. Then the taste testers approached me.

Her:  Would you like to take a survey and try three different kinds of oatmeal today?
Me:  No. We just want to get into the museum.
Her:  Oh, okay then, go right ahead.

She lets us through....ahead of the three groups of people doing the survey. They glare at me, but it's their own fault they can't go any further. They volunteered to do the oatmeal thing, not me! haha

We pay our $4 (remember, $2/per person today) and enter the museum.  We can barely move the tiny exhibit rooms are so packed with people and screaming kids and GIANT strollers with NO kids in them.  If you're not going to put your kid in the stroller, leave it outside people!

We wind our way through the rooms until we get to the fun part: the dinosaur bones and activity centers.  Marshy has been looking forward to playing on the erosion table for almost a year.  He loves it!  There's sand and water and you can watch how erosion works while playing with plastic dinosaurs and palm trees and building mountains and valleys, etc.  It's a lot of fun.

To get to the erosion table, you have to walk past the "design a dinosaur" station. It's a large, carpet covered figure.  On the walls are pieces: heads, horns, noses, spikes, tails, etc. that you can attach with velcro to build your own dinsoaur.  It's so crowded we barely push through.  That's a bad sign, cuz it's by far the lamest activity there.

As we approach the erosion table there are so many people that I'm sure the fire marshal would've freaked out.  Kids are standing reaching over the tops of one another to play in the water.  Marshy wants to play, but I can barely see him next to me (and he's holding my hand!) so I tell him maybe next time, there's too many kids playing in the water right now.  He sighs and shuffles out of the room with me.

We battle our way through the museum to the next fun activity:  digging for dinosaur bones in the sand.  Again, so many kids and parents and shoes and socks and strollers all over the place that there's no way he would ever have gotten to dig.  It makes me sad.  It makes him sad, too.  I offer to take him to the gift shop and buy him a consolation prize.  He gets happier.  He picks the biggest dinosaur he can find in our price range and is so happy!  That makes the day a little better.  We were only in there for maybe 40 minutes.  It's a good thing we only paid $4. I would've been pissed if I'd paid full price.

Then we get lunch at McDonald's.  The Happy Meal toys are superheroes.  Today's toy?  Aquaman.  LAME.  As we're driving through the bank, Marshy says, "Look mom!"  I look back to find this: 

"T-REX IS EATING AQUAMAN MOMMY!"

And that, I have decided, is why I bother.

This is the Munchkin.

We took him to see Toy Story 3 yesterday.  He loved it.  He didn't love the 3D glasses so much, but he liked going to the movies.

As we left he said "Dad, we need a big movie at our house, too."

Cutie!