We're Moving!

Did you see that? We're moving(again)! This time we're headed back to New York. No, not the city. Which is good, cuz we're not really big city folk. We are planning on making many trips there, though. And no, not Fort Drum. We've been to Fort Drum. Except for the lovely friends, once is enough. And we aren't in the ARMY anymore. This time we're headed to the southwest part of the state.

Oh, and we're leaving in a week and a half. 11 days. It's all been a bit rushed. We only found out for sure about 2 weeks ago. Did you know that moving yourself really sucks? We're used to the ARMY movers coming in and packing everything in 2 days & all we have to do is clean. This is way more time consuming when it's just 1-2 people (plus 4 little non-helpers who like to take stuff back out of boxes when you're not looking). It does have advantages though. I'm not going to pack pictures with silverware or a trashcan full of trash. Plus, you get to see everything you own & realize you have way to much junk and can get rid of tons of stuff. I have way too much junk. The people at Goodwill know us by sight now. When we only bring a few bags they've actually asked "Is that all today?". Yup. For today. LOL

I've been trying to load pictures onto photobucket for my slideshows, but they aren't all loading for some reason. That's why I haven't posted anything lately. I'm trying to pare down to just a few instead of a slideshow, but that's really hard for me. I like displaying ALL of my good pictures. But I will try. Once we leave I don't know how long it will be before we have internet access again, so I want to get as much posted as I can before we go. Here's hoping!

Football & Cheerleading 2010 Part 3 - Pep Rally

Every year we have to buy "Pep Rally" outfits that the cheerleading coordinator swears we'll wear every week. Every year, it never fails, we have ONE pep rally and never wear the outfits again. This is something I totally do not understand. Anywaaaayyyy........

Each cheer group gets up in front of the football players and parents & performs a couple cheers. The president of our Pop Warner group gets up and says a few words. The coaches say a few words. Then they drag out the high school football players to say a few words. The high school cheerleaders used to show up, but apparently they were busy this year.

The board members grill hot dogs. Everybody hopes there will be enough after the the high schoolers go through the line. Then all the kiddos get out there and do this (line) dance to some song whose lyrics are solely dedicated to telling you how to do the dance. I don't know the name of it. Maybe it's called "To the left, to the left, to the left, to the left, to the right, to the right, to the right, to the right." Although that may be too long for a song title. It is funny to watch all those kids trying to do dance in sync. Especially the football players. :)

Cowboys Training Camp 2010

On August 1st we attended the Dallas Cowboys Training Camp in San Antonio. This was a day filled with many, many, MANY ups and downs. It was certainly a once in a lifetime event...not because we couldn't go again, but probably because we won't go again. Seeing all the players up close and personal was super exciting. Getting autographs was cool. Standing in 100+ degree heat for hours on end & fighting the psychotic fans who are willing to knock down women holding small children to get an autograph is not cool.

At any rate, we did get a bunch of photos, a couple autographs & some interesting memories. It's probably best to go with the mindset that you're just going to watch them practice and have no desire to get autographs.
Please excuse the terrible picture quality. I left our camera at home and when we went to Wal-Mart to pick up something else, found the photo section to be closed after 9 o'clock at night. At a 24 hour Wal-Mart. This made absolutely no sense to me & upset me greatly. We had to settle for the little $3 disposable 35mm cameras and the dark, grainy pictures as a result. So sorry. :(

Football & Cheerleading 2010 Part 2 - Scrimmage Trip

Last year when Bug's football team played their "Superbowl", they played a team from Mission, Texas who isn't in our division. This year, they invited a bunch of teams from other divisions to participate in a pre-season scrimmage in their town. The teams played about 30 minutes against each other then switched teams. It was good practice for them.

Mission is several hours away & we weren't playing until the afternoon, so everybody just stayed the night down there. The hotel we stayed at had tiny rooms with only 2 double beds, so the 6 of us were very squished that night. They also had a very small pool, but we managed to get in right before check-out when there wasn't anybody in there, so the kids got to have fun. Boo Boo Bear just kept jumping right in when no one was near him and nearly drowned twice, but it didn't slow him down at all! Apparently he's a fish like Bug & Lil' Coconut. Pinks is a bit more cautious.

There was this awesome police car in a parking lot that half was painted as a cop car & half as a taxi cab. We circled back around to get a closer look because it was a little confusing at first, but upon closer inspection found that it was a reminder not to drive drunk! Very cool.

Flower Shirt for Mama!

It's not often that I make something for myself. It's even more rare that I take pictures of myself (or even allow myself to be in them!), but here ya go!

I made this shirt months ago and it was the first shirt I ever made. That collar was somethin' else to make. I'm really not very good at gathering. I would much rather pleat. This is from the McCall's M5640 pattern. Looks cute enough on the cover model, but it turned out like a big tent! I wore it that way for quite awhile until I realized that the back really did look like a big flowery circus tent. Then I saw on someone's blog how they fitted a shirt on themselves, so I tried it out.
Turn the shirt inside out, put it on & go stand in front of the mirror. Carefully pin the shirt until it fits the way you want it to. Then very, VERY carefully take it back off, sew and/or cut as needed. I tapered 3 inches in the middle on each side so that it went from looking like this /   \  to looking more like this )  (    This has now caused some funny little extra folds on the sides at the bottom, but is now much more flattering.

I bought a bunch of patterns for myself when they were .99 cents a piece, but haven't made anything else yet. (I did re-fashion a t-shirt for myself, which I may show later.)

I have a bunch of this fabric leftover so I am thinking about making the girls some matching peasant dresses. What do you think? Do you know of a really cute pattern that would work for this material?

I was featured!

The Train To Crazy featured my pleated t-shirt dress on Make It Wear It! I am so excited! I may have to link up more often.

Thank you Andrea from Train to Crazy!

4th of July outfits

The 4th of July oufits!

Finally!

 I {heart} red, white & blue!

 The boys shorts were SO super easy! They were made from CarlaC's Easy Fit Pants pattern. It took me about an hour to make both pairs of shorts. Don't let that beautiful patchwork fool you, I didn't do all that! I bought the fabric already all patchworked up. Do you think patchworked is a word? I'm gonna say yes.

I did find that the waist on these pants is a little too long for my taste, so I shortened Boo Boo Bear's. Bug, however liked it just fine, so I left it. Apparently, it's a matter of personal opinion & can easily be tailored to fit the wearer. I'm thinking about buying this pattern for adults, too. It's nice that it can be used for both genders!

Oh, these dresses were so frustrating! Unlike the one hour shorts, these things took days to make. This is probably due to the fact that I sort of made it up as I went along. I had a vision in mind, but no pattern that matched. I made the halter top from McCall's M5419 pattern, then extended it to ankle length & added a 4 inch ruffle. It turned out nothing like I imagined, but still cute.

4th of July

Luckily, during my blogging strike I was still making digital layouts, so I can remember what we did over 3 months ago! We took the kids down to Corpus Christi because they always have fun stuff for the kids to do. The kids activities this year were good (check out my girlies climbing rocks in dresses!), but the parade was less than mediocre. There was literally like 10 entries. Last year there was closer to 100! I'm not sure what the problem was, but I was very disappointed. It was so super hot & we had been sitting out there waiting after doing all the activities just to watch a 15 minute parade. Frustrating. The kids enjoyed what there was though, so all good, I guess.

 The kids loved the pony rides!

(good thing too, because we waited for over 30 minutes!)

Later, we went over to the USS Lexington, an aircraft carrier turned museum, to watch the fireworks. They launch them from the end of the ship, so you can sit on the beach & watch them right overhead. This was our first year to watch them from this vantage point and it was AWESOME! Other than the noise, the kids loved the fireworks, so it was a great day!

*Coming up next, the kids 4th of July outfits!*

Football & Cheerleading 2010 Part 1 - Watermelon Social

We started out our football and cheerleading season back in the summer with a car wash & bake sale fundraiser. A lot of girls showed up, but Bug was the ONLY football player there. Go figure. I'm betting that the $$ got split between the two groups even though only one group participated. Maybe I'm just too cynical. I snapped one whole picture of my kids working, because I knew I'd probably never catch them washing MY car with that much enthusiasm!

They must first complete two weeks of conditioning before they are allowed to have normal practices. At the end of these two weeks, the high school football players and cheerleaders invite the little people to join them for a watermelon social. It's a tradition. They are all supposed to meet and mingle while eating watermelon. I'm not sure if you can tell by the pictures, but the high schoolers don't really interact with the kids. There's watermelon, but no social. A bummer really, because those big kids could pass on all the infinite knowledge they think they have to fresh, young minds eager for...anything. Hmmm. At any rate, my kids had fun devouring enormous slice after enormous slice of watermelon, getting ridiculously sticky & running around the adults and high schoolers like we were some kind of human maze. Good times. :)

Confessions of a Lazy Crafter & A Project!

I really must stop lying. I promised you way back on the 16th that I would be back later that day with something. Anything! What day is it now? LOL

I also must confess that I have not sewn, crafted, blogged, or even looked at all my favorite crafty blogs in weeks. Instead I have been spending insane, ridiculous & shameful amounts of time playing games on the computer. My stress is at an all time high right now & instead of being creative as a means of coping, I'm escaping. Does that sound healthy? Yeah, I didn't think so. Anyway, I decided to do something different (for at least part of the day, LOL) by uploading all my pictures, looking at a few crafty blogs & actually blogging. Shocking, I know.

The first blog I looked at today was Brown Paper Packages. I love this blog because there are so many useful projects on here. And since today is Wednesday, Leisel is hosting Wardrobe Wednesday. It's a time for crafty people to show off the things they've made to be worn. I've been wanting to join in since I first saw it, but since I never get around to posting the things I've made, I never entered. TODAY IS THE DAY!

NOTE: I am also linking up to Make It, Wear It at The Train to Crazy! (Also, a fabulous blog!)

I saw this awesome Pleated T-Shirt Tutorial from Create & Delegate and knew I wanted to make Pinky Lee a special outfit for football & cheerleading. Last year she just wore Lil' Coconut's old cheer uniform, but I wanted her to have something unique this year.

TA-DA!Isn't she just adorable???
Quite the model.

In action!

I love it, she loves it, and we got a lot of compliments on it. This won't be the last time you see this pattern because I am in love with it! Ooooh, that sounded like a promise on my part. Let me rephrase: You may or may not see more dresses of the pleated t-shirt variety. This will depend on my making more (which I have), taking pictures (which I have not), uploading pictures, editing pictures, and finally blogging about said dress and pictures.

For now, please enjoy this one & don't forget to enjoy everyone else's project entries here:

The Ike Special - Varsity Edition

Okay, who saw this awesomeness on the Yahoo homepage? If not you must watch! I cried through my laughter. It's so super sweet. These boys rock!

There is good in the world after all.

Just checking in!

We've been super busy again! Granny & Papa visited us for 8 days. We had a great time with them & as always, I have pictures of that to share. We're also back in the full swing of football and cheerleading again and I am so excited to tell you about what happened at Saturday's game. As soon as I load the pictures. We have lots of things to catch up on, but I will try to be back later today to post something!

Oh, yeah. I have a big announcement coming soon. I have a few more kinks to work out. Please check back often to see what it is! Thanks!

Goodbye Stella

Our beloved Stella went to puppy heaven this weekend. We are very sad & will miss her very much. She was a great dog and the only pet our kids have ever had.
We got Stella about 6 years ago when DH was deployed to Afghanistan. Bug kept asking for either a dog or a little brother, so I went with the dog. Our daycare provider knew of some people who needed to find a good home for a nice doggy because their new foster child was allergic to furry animals. I fell in love with Stella immediately & brought her home. Bug & Lil' C were ecstatic.

About a year ago, Stella went blind. We don't really know why, but she never did regain her sight. These pictures were taken with her back in April when she got really sick and the vet thought maybe it was something neurological and uncurable, but she recovered after treatment for an infection. She endured a lot, but was always affectionate, loving & loyal.

If you've ever lost a pet, you know how hard it can be. We've been uncertain of how to handle it with all the kiddos, but are figuring it out as we go. Bug and Lil' C are super sad, Boo is too young to understand, and Pinky Lee keeps asking when Stella can come back. That makes me super sad.

Goodbye Stella. We miss you & will never forget you.

Baseball 2010

Bug played baseball again this year. Lil' Coconut did not. This makes me doubly (is this a word?) sad that we lost all of the pictures from last year. We did get pictures from this year though & you can see them in the slideshow below .above. (Because every time I try to label my slideshows it makes them not show up...this makes me insane!) This year, Daddy was Bug's coach. This was both good and bad. Good because Daddy is a great coach. Bad because we don't think Bug played to his full potential because Daddy was his coach. Plus, Dad had to umpire either the game before or after each of our games. For some reason they couldn't get official umpires this year, so the coaches were supposed to fill in & they would get paid. Well, they didn't get paid, most of the coaches didn't bother to umpire which left Dad all by himself on the field sometimes, & holy heck batman can some adults spoil a good time! Daddy's not sure he wants to put up with all the negatives of coaching again next year, but he has a few months to think on it.

This year was also totally different because Bug went from coach pitch to the minors. It went from being really fun & learning how to play the game, to MLB intensity with the addition of score keeping. We were shocked at our first game when the other team spent the entire game stealing bases. Some kid tried to steal home on a walk. Yeah. Wasn't just that team either, it was every team but ours. Oddly enough, we hadn't taught our team to steal bases. We thought 8-11 year-olds should still be learning the fundamentals of baseball instead of just learning how to win. Who knew?

At any rate, Bug seemed to have fun, and THAT is the whole point!!

I Will Survive- Homeschool Version

I received the link to this video from our home school group leader, and as today is our first day of school (plus one of my favorite songs EVAH...did I mention I saw Gloria Gaynor perform this live once?) I thought it would be appropriate.

1st Day of School!

We started the main part of our curriculum today! Last year's curriculum was great, but not for us. It involved way too much time on my part & lots of reading aloud, which sounds really nice, but didn't work so well with two little people running around and screaming. Very hard to concentrate on history, science and whatnot with all that commotion.

Now we are using Switched On Schoolhouse (SOS) by Alpha Omega. Bug and Lil'C are most excited about having their own computers & doing school on them. I am most excited about the absence of papers and paperwork. We STILL have paperwork from last year all over my desk & the family room.

We have other "electives" like handwriting, art & life skills that we will be starting later. I will try to take pix of everything and post them. Pinky Lee will also be starting some preschool things, but for now she is learning her colors and counting by playing Candy Land, the Winnie the Pooh edition! Here are Lil'C and Bug hard at work.

(Please excuse the messy craft room...the new arrangement is NOT working out)

Coupon Sorter

If you're a coupon user, you've probably seen those advertisements for coupon sorting mats. They look really cool, but they want like $20 or more for them. I think this is silly. So being the frugal crafter I am, I decided to make my own and it was super simple!I used the Printable Journaling Cards from Jessica Sprague, adding the titles that I use to divide my coupons. Using packing tape, I put 4 open file folders together (you may need more or less depending on how many categories you have), then covered those with 8 sheets of coordinating chocolate brown scrapbook paper. Evenly space the titles & give everything a good cover of tape to hold it in place. Then try to figure out how to fold it all back up & VOILA! A coupon sorter on the cheap!
Happy couponing & crafting!

5:56 AM

I'm awake! I'm awake! I just wanted to have at least one post in my life that showed that sometimes I get up before 9 am!

The Big 1-0!

A Decade! Double Digits!

Bug turned 10 last month! It was fairly traumatic for me, but he thought it was the coolest thing ever. I can still remember the day he was born. Like it was yesterday. Wanna hear it???

We celebrated with pizza & cupcakes after baseball practice one night, but I forgot the camera.

On his actual birthday, Bug helped make this Marshmallow Cake from MADE. The first night we made it, it was only so-so, but after sitting in the fridge all night? SOOOO good. My pictures do this cake no justice. You MUST go see hers. I'm sure this isn't the only yummy thing you'll find there. Daddy & Bug lighting 10 candles!!

My handsome young man!

Make a wish birthday boy!

My cutie-patootie crew sharing in Bug's birthday joy!

BTW, why is that when little boys turn not so little, all we can think of to get them is money? Hmm, there must be a solution somewhere! Gotta figure out something before Christmas. Any ideas?

Gifts for twin baby girls

A friend of mine recently gave birth to two adorable baby girls (Okay, I haven't seen them yet, but I'm SURE they're adorable!) bringing their family size to a grand total of 6! Yea for families with four kids! LOL! Anywho, I wasn't really sure what they needed, so I decided flex my creative muscle & borrow ideas from all the talented crafters in blog land.

I have been wanting to use these gorgeous fabrics ever since I saw them, but didn't have any need to. Now I do! My first project: Burp Cloths! These burp cloths were made from a free pattern at You Can Make This. My kids think they look like dog bones, but they are the perfect fit over your shoulder. I used the fringe idea from Homemade by Jill to make them even more cute and for ease in sewing.
It's like a burp cloth sandwich. Tee hee.

One side has the beautiful girly girl cotton fabric, while the other side has soft flannel.

And now for something completely different...an idea of my own! Bath mitts! This was super easy & they are super cute. I may just give you a little tutorial (although I'm sure you could figure it out on your own) mostly so I can help you avoid the mistakes I made (although I'm sure you wouldn't make a mistake in the first place, right?)

Then there's the showstoppers!

Okay, that may be a bit over dramatic, but these were a real labor of love. I learned to use my embroidery machine with these. I ruined one & had to start over. I broke two machine needles. That was just for the monograms.

Then there were the ruffles.

Check out those frou frou ruffly butts! Oh my! I used this tutorial from UCreate. This was WAY harder than it should have been. I'm hoping that's just because I used satin ribbon & not because I'm a poor seamstress! :O

It's supposed to have 3 rows of ruffles each, but I stopped after just 2.
Oh, well. They are adorable now & I'm sure she'll appreciate them!