Baby Book #1

I only have a million and half projects to do before August.  Nothing like a baby to get my crafting in high gear.  Some of the projects for children who were born years ago.  Like three baby books for my daughter.  What?  Three baby books is over load, I agree but my son has three and I feel obligated to meet the challenge.  He has a baby book, that you fill out and glue the pictures, that I did not finish until after the second baby was born.  He has a baby calendar where you know I recorded important events, and he has a small 3-d 6 page scrapbook that I gave him before his sister was born, so he wouldn't feel TOO slighted by the new baby. Which you can see at that previous link.  Well I'm not that far, I still have to completely fill out my daughter's baby book, and make her small scrapbook (she absolutely LOVES her brother's book). But I at least got the pictures glued in her baby calendar.  The baby calendar is the easiest because I already filled it all out her first year, I just had to glue in pictures.  Tah-dah!  I feel so accomplished.

Don't you hate when as far as you can tell the picture is completely rotated correctly, and then it uploads sideways!

Have no fear I already bought this new baby a baby book and a baby calendar, so I wouldn't give up.  I think I have a sickness. I find it important to over chronicle their first year of life, so I give up on the next five years. Actually I made an important decision years ago, to not do anymore for my son until after his 5th birthday, I've been spending the last 14 months deciding what to do now.  I think I've decided. His generation will never have any printed photographs.  My husband once said their generation will be like our great grandparent's, they'll be happy to have three pictures from their whole life.  I was originally going to make a photobook, from snapfish or shutterfly, or winkflash, but I changed my mind. I'm going to print up a couple hundred photos, or maybe just 50 from the first five years, and put them in an old school photo album.  So in twenty years when he gets married he actually has real live photographs. Plus it will be easy enough to keep up with for all my kids over the years, and more cost effect then photobooks.  We have family photo books for every year.  

Baby Quilt Preview

I'm making a baby quilt aren't you excited?

I'm using my daughter's baby quilt as measurement.  I figured the easiest way to measure was to lay it on top.

My mother made my daughter's baby quilt, and my sister in law made J's baby quilt (the one without a girl on it).. I'm pretty lucky that my sister in law likes her brother (my husband) so much, because back in the days of number one, I had no idea I even cared about baby quilts.  But now I do. Although maybe my sister in law converted me, after giving us the quilt.
Part of me is all giddy that I'm making my baby a quilt, but I'm not sure why, its not my first baby quilt.  I made one for my sister.

Princess Cape

My son's cape has thankfully made a resurgences, and this has fascinated my daughter, so it was high time to make her one of her own.  I have only been planning on it for about two years.  I had material sitting waiting for me, but unfortunately I forgot to bring it to Texas, so we bought new stuff at walmart.  Can I just say I'm jealous my mom's walmart has fabric.  Our does not, plus I live in a small town, its 40 minutes to JoAnns! Crafts, Sams, and my OB, are the only reason I leave my small town.

 I will point that my mom made the majority of this project, while I was busy napping, and feeling generally pregnant.  Maybe she did everything other than cut the interfacing.
I used the crown pattern from the same site as we made J's cape from, but used this pattern for the cape this time.

Never miss an opportunity to look fabulous. By the way one of the tings I love about my daughter is she has great expressions all from her eyes.

A quick story: While my mom and I were working, my husband said, you guys are sure spending a lot of time on this cape.  I said, I spend no more or less time on anything I make for the kids.  This is a completely normal amount of time.  He seems to be genuinely surprised at how much effort I spend on projects for my children.  Sure it was actually my mom's time this time, but nonetheless, the point is true.  I put great care into making lovely things for my children. I would rather spend 3 hours for a nice finished project, then 40 minutes on crap.

Mermaidens

My husband is a stellar man and suggested we visit my parents a few weeks ago, so five days later we were in the car.  While I was at my mom's we of course did a bit of sewing.  One of our projects was these mermaidens: 

It is easy to let my mom do all the creative work when doing a craft with her, but I was determined to pull my share of the weight.  I thought these little girls were intensive to make, my mom said as far as dolls go these were fairly easy.  Phew, good to know, for future reference.  Also I should point out I'm terrible at symmetrical free motion sewing, but I already knew this.  Also one of their fins got terrible messed up and my mom had to finish it for me, after me unpicking it three times, and a attempting it twice.
They are cute fun dolls, I'm glad I made them for my daughter, but even gladder my mom helped me.
And please no one look at my free motion sewing.

We are Crumby

My husband was worried our brooms and mops would rip our drywall, so he suggested putting a board on the wall with screws instead of in the drywall.  I decided I wanted it pretty.  This is what I came up with.  I thought it was perfect, my family is SO crumby!  It actually helps to see the board every time I bring out the broom.  Instead of despising their messiness like I was, I just sweep and think nothing of it. 

 I wish my camera would have focused on the wood instead of the dry wall, but its cheap. I thought we could mass produce them and start selling them on etsy, I haven't ever seen anything like this. By the way I have no cricket or silhouette so I must do it the old fashion way.

Wall- E Party

Well the big event Wall-E party came and went.  As you remember the invites. Here is what the table looked like.  We had Juice boxes, mini pigs in a blankets, apples, and carrots.  

 Here is our jello pudding dirt cups, with little sluggy hopefully roachy looking bugs in them.  (I obviously made more pudding cups, but this is all that fit on my cake dish. Then treat bags in the background, that I had to assemble-- glue wall-e on yellow bags.

 At one point we did wall-e pin the cockroach on wall-e, which is on the door. We used post-it notes with the roach from the movie glued on the paper, so we wouldn't ruin our poster.  We also did wall-e bingo, the pinata, and the last event was trash toss, of newspaper balls thrown in a box.

 With that many kids we had a picnic for dinner.

 The birthday boy blowing out is 6 candle.

 Eating the pudding cups, I thought they were super yummy.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Birthday

My son turned six a few weeks ago as you and know, and I made a lot of chocolate chip cookies the day before.  I made a giant cookie pie again, and was once again not happy with the results, it was better than the previous year, but it was too dry.  Although I'm not convinced anyone makes a yummy giant cookie, I think it just looks exciting. Although I need to work on my decorating skills of giant cookies, I've improved but I still have a way to go.  My son asked for those candy candy cake things. 

My boy is adorable isn't he?  I'm so crafty.

 Then for his birthday in school, I make chocolate chip cookie sandwiches. Which meant I had to make 60 perfectly size chocolate chip cookies.  I used betty crocker cookie creme, which you can buy in the premade frosting section. Everyone said they were yummy (ie half the kids, the teacher, the teacher's assistant, my friend who I gave the last four cookies to), but I thought the cookie creme was too store bought tasting, I would be interested in finding a yummy homemade recipe.

 The birthday boy loved them!  He also loved being sung too, and getting to eat the first bite (a tradition in the kindie class). It was also 100 day at school, so he was dressed up like he was 100 years old.  Note the mustache that is actually a beard.

Just for the record, I needed two bags of cookie creme for my 30 sandwiches, and I think I used less than recommendations.
I still want to try out the chocolate chip cookie ice box cake.

Sensory Box

Last year when my daughter was in speech therapy one of her favorite things was a sensory box.  Once I found out my husband did not move the sandbox, I always planned on making one, but I just never could decided how I wanted to do it.  Finally enough was enough, and I did it. It has hard black beans, hard kidney beans, hard macaroni noodles, beads, and a bunch of little animal toys that plague the toy box, plus other stuff the three year old added. Kids love putting their hands in all that stuff.

She loves it.  I originally though I wanted a big box for it, but now I realize that was crazy talk, because it would be a potentially bigger mess.  Sensory boxes are great, but you need to be in the same room as them, because sometimes its tempting to be naughty and throw the beans.  

 Even my 6 year old was fascinated. Ignore the fact I used a camera that couldn't take bright light pictures.

If I would have paid better attention in speech therapy I probably could tell you the benefits of sensory boxes, but I just know they are great for little fingers and brains.  The great thing is they are cheap, if you don't have a plastic shoe box, they are only $1, but we had millions, I use them for everything.  The beans, and macaroni were all out of food storage, and the toys, well the toys obviously needed a new life, and so it was a free project, and great for winter days.
Speech therapy was for my daughter, but I was present and participating in all of her classes, it turned out it was great mothering class too, it taught me what is normal for kids, and how kids want to touch and move to learn. (I hate moving and touching when I'm learning.) So when my son is trying to do is homework, and stops to jump all over the room, then calmly sits down and writes another sentence, I now realize that is normal. When his homework is counting, and he wants to jump to count, counting each jump around the kitchen table, I now just let him, instead wanting to ornerily tell him to sit down and count.
Here is a fun website for other preschool things.

Mini Candy Cake

We had the Elders over for dinner from our church, and made mini candy cake.  Luckily they were brave souls and didn't think I was trying to kill them with sugar.  Mini cakes are so much more enjoyable I think, 6 inches is the perfect size to get nice mini piece of cake which is a necessity for this cake to prevent a sugar overdose.

 My six year old was very involved in the process.  We started with finding this idea for nerd confetti cupcakes on pinterest. Which is incredibly simple, just add nerds into white cake batter. Then instead of buttercream frosting I had been dying for some pudding frosting.  I add grape kool-aid to the frosting for extra candy taste, and for color.

Don't mind that there is a massive amount of frosting in the middle of my cake.  I live at 7,000 ft and well you try to make a cake that doesn't collapse in the middle at that altitude.  Just for perspective a lot of baking says, for high altitude (3,500 ft- 6,500 ft), and then how much flour to add.  Yes, I live higher than the instructions even list!  

So back to the frosting, in case you haven't had wonderful pudding frosting, here is the extremely simple recipe.  I didn't grow up eating pudding frosting, but luckily my mother in law makes it.

PUDDING FROSTING
1 (3 oz.) pkg. instant pudding, any flavor 1/4 c. powdered sugar 1 c. cold milk 1 (8 oz.) container Cool Whip, thawed Combine pudding, sugar and milk in bowl. Blend well. Fold in Cool Whip. Frost cakes and store in refrigerator.

from cooks.com

Before I added the cool whip I added in grape kool-aid powder.  I got the idea from this nerd cake recipe.

Look at her eyeing that cake, she just wants to smash her hand in it like she is on her first birthday.  By the way the frosting was so good, I probably consumed about 2 cups worth of it after I finished frosting the cake.  It was a mini cake after all and we didn't need all the frosting. 

We actually baked the cake on monday when we also made cupcakes.  I froze the cakes, and we ate a few cupcakes for FHE.  These are the few cupcakes that survived the week, and they ended up with some frosting too. On monday I just put straight cool whip on the cupcakes with nerds, because I didn't feel like making frosting, or have time.

 Overall the project was a success, my son is normally not a cake person and asked if I would make this next year for his birthday.

By the way part of the reason I love mini cakes, is very rarely do you have enough people over to eat a full size cake.  So I bake two round 6" cakes, for a mini cake, then cupcakes, this time I ended up with 24 mini cupcakes, 12 normal size cupcakes after the two 6" round cakes.  Now mind you I get a little bit more cake out of a box mix for some reason at this altitude, but that is two desserts right there.  Cupcakes for one party, a mini cake for the next dinner event.  According to this site you can freeze a well wrapped cake for a month. Not only is it healthier not to consume a whole cake, it saves money and time.

Valance

I made a valance for my laundry room.  I have absolutely no practice in making valances, but I saw a cute one on pinterest that I never could find again, and I realized that is what my laundry room was missing.

I hated the window and especially the honeycomb blinds, but that is when I realized a valance, I didn't want full on curtains since a laundry room is so dusty and linty.  I think its perfect, although I do know it would look better if I knew how to make a professional looking valance.  I love the material, I love toile, I love green and since had the material waiting for a project, it was perfect. The project was only the cost of a cheap curtain rod, and it matches my wreath, sort of, the greens do match.

Lucky

I painted these lucky letters years ago for St. Patrick's Day, but what I had done with them fell apart.  I finally re-purposed them into this sign. I love it, the frame has a little bit of glitter in the paint but not as much as the letters.  The rainbow picture was taken in our backyard.  Not the best ever rainbow picture, but definitely not bad.  I was surprise how well it went with the frame-- at least in my opinion.

This is pretty much my new favorite thing in my house, until March 20th.
Once again I'm a fan of the variegated paint job.

Princess Dress

In my attempt to find flannel at JoAnns Fabric store, we ended up on the character material aisle, (its the same one). Nan desperately wanted princess material, so I gave in so I could put back some other ugly material she had asked for.  The material was half off, and has that elastic smocking, so it was about the easiest dress in the world to make.  All I had to do was hem up the side since the bottom comes hemmed, then add straps.  For character prints its actually kind of cute material. She loves it. It ended up costing less than $8, not bad for a dress especially on with Disney Princesses on it.

Homemade Valentine's Day

For some reason I make my kids homemade valentine presents. I was going to quit this year, but then I saw Rainy Day Hopscotch in a Family Fun Magazine in a doctor's office and knew that my son would love it.  He is obsessed with hopscotch from recess. 

 The longest part of the project was cutting out the stencils.  I would link to family fun magazine but I never could find a link.

 My daughter got a frilly tool belt.  Probably doesn't look like a tool belt to you, but we have a kid tool belt that she loves and wears all the time because she loves the pockets.  Not all of her pants have pockets and she needs pockets for her cell phone.

Valentine Breakfast

My kids woke up early on valentine day's so I made them, heart pancakes with valentine sprinkles inside and on top of the cream.

I feel guilty I didn't take a picture of my son in his red shirt.

Do you know what this is?

Do you know what this is?

 A pinata!  A refrigerator pinata from Wall-E its where he finds the plant.

Did you hear the whole saga of the pinata, long story short there was nothing in the $10 pinata range that my son and I agreed on other than a present that was a square.  My husband said all along we should just make on and when I looked at that square of a present pinata I threw the idea out to my son.  He loved it.  My husband wanted to do a balloon pinata of Eve, but my son wanted a refrigerator! What 6 year old picks a refrigerator for a pinata? Mine.
If we were making a pinata I wanted it to be ruffly with paper like a real pinata, so I read all of Oh Happy Day's Tutorials, and dyed my white streamers with tea after seeing this watercolor streamer tutorial. The pictures don't show that our white was actually tea brown, to imitate the rust and dirt or Wall-E's world. I never got to putting a handle on it.  The pinata has a false back and the candy is behind the plant.
Brent thankfully helped me do the whole thing, I had never made a pinata before.  When we were finish I was unhappy with results, but after staring at it a long time, I realized it was the composition not the execution. Then my friend said, I love how creative he is-- in reference to him wanting a refrigerator pinata.
My son loved it, and that is what matters.

Oh course we only sang Jim Croce's Roller Derby Queen once or twice.

She is a five foot six and two fifteen A bleached-blonde mama with a streak of meanShe knew how to knuckleAnd she knew how to scuffle and fightAnd the roller derby program saidThat she were built like a 'fridgerator with a head