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!

Memorial Day 2010

Yes, Memorial Day was a looong time ago, but I made this really cute layout that I wanted to share with you!

*If you see a template, digi design, or font you like anywhere on my blog, just ask & I'll tell you where you can find it too!

A New Addition

To my craft room, that is. Look at this little beauty! It's the Singer Future SES2000. It's my birthday, Christmas, Mother's Day, birthday & Christmas present all in one. Yes, it was still that expensive even though we got a great deal on it. (My husband loves me!)

This thing does it all. Sewing, serging & embroidery! I'll be honest. I haven't quite figured out yet how it does the serging, but I'll get around to it eventually. It took me two solid days to figure out the embroidery feature, but I did & I can't wait to show you what I made! I just need to take some pictures. Oh yeah, it sews too, so I've been doing a little of that.

I always thought my inability to sew a straight line was related to the fact that I can neither draw nor cut a straight line. Ha! Incredibly enough, I can sew a straight line on this machine. Maybe it's because I don't have to tug and pull my material through when there are multiple layers. And by multiple layers, I mean more than one. Who sews through just one layer of fabric all the time? Oh well, no worries now! If you have any questions about my fancy schmancy new machine, just let me know. I'll do my best to answer!

That sweet DH of mine came home from work last week to find the craft room (which is like a sitting room of sorts to our bedroom) completely torn apart, with only a small pathway to the bathroom and the bedroom. Sometime around lunch I had decided I needed to make room for my new machine & the laptop (because you have to be connected to the computer while doing embroidery), which meant I needed to bring in more work space in the form of two desks. While this is a large room, there are multiple windows and doorways to contend with, as well as keeping the outlets accessible. I had already moved every piece of furniture at least once, if not 2 or 3 times. Nothing was working. Finally we settled on something that at least seemed functional, put everything away, and called it a day.

Now I've had a chance to test that arrangement out. Yeah, um...not so much. I'm open to ideas. If you have a really cool crafting room, or you know where I can go to look, PLEASE tell me!

Words to live by

Break time's over!

I'm back! I've really missed blogging, but it took me a while to just figure it all out. I needed to decide what was really important to me (and why), and let everything else go. I'm still working on that! As it turns out, blogging is important to me, but I was doing it for other people. Now, I'm going to do it for me. Sounds a little selfish, huh? Hmm...well, I'm hoping that blogging about what I like just might be interesting to you, too. That is, if anyone is still out there. Are you out there???

*crickets chirping*

For those of you still here, there have been so many things going on here at the Beaz Hive that I will tell you all about. We have been very busy beaz these past few months! We've celebrated holidays, a milestone birthday, played and watched baseball, and we've spent oodles of hours at the library. These updates are going to come quite randomly rather than chronologically just because some things are ready to post & some aren't.

Now for the change. This blog will no longer (solely) be about my sweet, adorable and incredibly smart children. It will now be (mostly) about my love of crafting. I love to craft. All kinds of crafting. And I've discovered a whole community of crafty blogs that I can't wait to share with you. I'll be sharing whatever happens to be interesting, and for those of you who are here just to see the baby beaz...I find them interesting too! ;)