Superhero Emergency!

Ya gotta love it when you kid tells you at 9:00 pm that they need a superhero cape for school the next day because it is "Superhero Day".  And it has to be a PLAIN color, "no monkeys or anything"  (Darn, I have all sorts of monkey fabric just kicking around).  Um, sure, I will just go to the fabric store at 9pm scrounge around and find something that will sort of work and whip that superhero cape out by 10:30.  Now who is the superhero?  I need to make myself a supermom cape for super moments of superMOMness.  Do you think she will appreciate this someday?

 (How do you like my pink fuzzy pants? I love them, thank you very much.)



Super Emilila!

I even made her a star hair clip 2 minutes before she had to walk out the door for school.  Now THAT is last minute!

Love These Weirdos

Mental Health Summit 2011

My sister Linda and also my parents have condos in Park City.  For the last three years, 3 of my sisters and I have been going there for a weekend getaway.  We call it the Mental Health Summit because we go for our mental health.  We play, eat, relax, shop and stay up late watching movies and giggling, talking and sharing our deep dark secrets.

Normally, (and by definition because it IS for our mental health) kids aren't really invited.  At the last minute Karen ended up having to bring her daughter Lucy.  To prevent Lucy from being bored I sacrificed my sanity and brought Elise.  The girls were actually really good and they had a fun time bonding over the weekend.  They haven't had a lot of time to hang out together so it was fun for them to get to know each other better.

 Last year Karen turned 40 so we gave her a black gift bag of Over The Hill stuff.  This year Carol is turning 40 so she had to get some fun gifts.  We got her a granny sweatshirt and some granny panties. They were big, and cheap and made out of that sheer white synthetic fabric.  Awesome.  She also got fiber supplements, tums (with calcium), arthritis cream and "maple nut goodies".  I suspect we will see the panties again when Linda turns 40.  We seem to have this tradition of passing down ugly items to each other in turn.  *cough* peach D.I. nightie *cough*

We had fun with some imitation Jelly Bellies.

Went out to dinner at the "Red Banjo" and debated about what "al dente" means since Karen and I had spaghetti that was several minutes past "al dente". Kind of what I would call "al squishe".  Carol thought it was only a minute or so past "al dente".  I thought it was a good 4-5 minutes past.  Very important discussions.

 Annnnd Carol gave everyone her matching "Betty White" jogging/suit jammies and we took some fun pics.

 Betty, Blanche, Sofia and Dorothy.  Not necessarily in that order. I said I wanted to be Dorothy so I could talk in a low manly voice.  Karen has to be Sofia because she is the oldest.  Carol, you are Betty because you got the outfits and called them Betty White outfits all along.  Linda, that leaves Blanche for you...It will work though because you are the spunky firey redhead.  :)  And for other reasons.  (just kidding)

 Love all these girls!  And my 2 sisters (and 4 sister-in-laws who weren't there).  All you sisters, here's the call:  Next October, Mental Health Summit, Park City.  Be there!

2 Sewing Projects and Life Changing Information

 Question:  Why is it when you buy a pattern from the store and make the item it looks TOTALLY different in real life.  Do THESE 2 skirts look the same to you?  I don't think so. I guess it serves me right for not following my #1 cardinal rule of pattern buying:  Never buy a pattern that only has a drawing of the item.  You MUST see how it looks after it is sewn.  If the professionals can't make it look good neither can you so DON'T even bother with it.  Now, that isn't to say that I hate how it turned out.  I think it is cute(ish).  But that's where my other complaint about patterns comes in.  The sizing.  I made a size 14 (kids) skirt for myself.   Don't be fooled, that isn't the size I wear, and I do wear womens' sizes.  After I made the skirt and it was finished I tried it on.  It was about 6 inches too wide at the waist.  I guess that would mean I should have made the size 8 or 10.  Riiiiiight.  That's the size Elise wears and she and I do not share clothes.  I had to take the whole top off, take in some fabric at each seam and then sew the top back on.  Now does it fit? No. It is still 3 inches too big.  Anybody want to try on this skirt to see if it fits? I am not really excited about taking it all apart again to try to make it fit. I don't know how many more times it can survive this kind of surgery.

On to bigger and better things.  One of my favorite things to sew: aprons. I made this for one of Adele's friends for her birthday which is tomorrow. She is going to LOVE this apron. (And boo to the pattern people. I don't need your stupid patterns. I can  make up my own.)  I think out of all the aprons I have ever made this is my favorite.  And it is reversible.  Love it.

Look at these cute owls!.

And one more thing. I learned something that will change my life forever. FOREVER.  I was having all sorts of tension problems on my sewing machine and no matter how I adjusted the needle tension I was still getting loops of the bobbin thread on the top of my fabric. It has been driving me crazy for MONTHS.  I was starting to think it needed professional help.  But then I decided to try the good old world wide web.  I found out that you can adjust the little screw on your bobbin case.  And that sometimes when your tension is messed up and fiddling with the needle tension does NOTHING you need to adjust the screw on the bobbin.  Does my sewing machine manual say this? No.  In fact, I learned that many sewing machine people say to never adjust it. (Don't know why they bother making it adjustable then... makes no sense to put a screw there and then tell you not to twist it...Sounds like a conspiracy between the sewing machine makers and the sewing machine repair people...)  So, I adjusted it.  PERFECTION!  Like I said. It has changed my life.  And now I can help change other people's lives too.

Crazy Hair Day 2011

 When I was fixing Elise's hair she kept saying she wanted me to spray her hair with colored hair spray. I told her I didn't have any and she reminded me that I bought some last year and put it away in a box.  I checked, and indeed I had several cans of colored hairspray that I got last year after Halloween.  Funny that they can remember the colored hairspray I bought a year ago but they can't remember to clean their rooms 5 mintues after I tell them.

Adele wanted to get in on the fun.  Holy cow, you should have seen the bath water when we rinsed out this red hair. It looked like the bathtub scene from Psycho, only not in black and white.

Emilia's crazy hair day was about a week later so she is being added to this post later.  She told me that "they" don't "tolerate" colored hair at middle school so you can't use hair spray paint.

Grandma to 2 Babies

I am the proud grandma to 2 baby dolls. One pink, one purple. Their names: Wavern and Naganern.

Bunny

The white bunny is still in our yard.  A friend of mine who has a bunny told me that bunnies are usually pretty territorial and they will usually go home if they run off.  Well, that bunny has been spending an awful lot of time in our yard and I am starting to think that it thinks our house is its home.  Different neighbors keep calling me and asking if I have a white bunny that got out.  The mailman delivered a package to my door the other day and asked if my bunny got out.  Nope. Not my bunny.  I think we should name the bunny Marshmallow and keep it.

BYU Football Game

Kent took Emilia to a BYU football game at LaVell Edward's Stadium in Provo.  She is becoming quite the sports fan and had an awesome time at the game Kent, uncle Mark and cousin Hailey. 

At the game with double cousin Hailey

(Two sisters married two brothers.  If you haven't heard the story you will have to ask me.)

Victory for BYU!

Update

• It is great now that school has started again.  The schedule is so nice and the kids are actually more content now that they aren't busy and with each other 24/7.   We are busier than ever and our schedule is even mor crazy now that I have kids in 2 different schools + one preschool now.  All their schedules are different and it is definitely a challenge remembering everything I need to remember.  And I don't always remember everything.  A week ago I forgot (or never really knew actually) that it was my turn to bring treats to Ian's soccer game.  Worst. Mom. Ever.  I felt like scum.

• I have a couple of neighbors who have fruit trees and it has been a really good year for fruit. I have had tons of apples, pears and plums. That has been keeping me pretty busy. I got a bunch of apples a couple of weeks ago and had an applesauce heyday and did 28 quarts.  I have recently gotten my hands on plums and pears and have been drying them. It is much less work than the canning. I did make some apple pie filling the other day that turned out pretty good. That was only the second time I have done pie filling and it had been a really long time. It makes me happy to be beefing up my food storage and doing it for very little cost.  Even though my jars are almost all filled up I just can't resist accepting more fruit because it is FREE!!!  I just have a handful of pint jars left to fill up and I think I will probably make some jam as soon as my pears get ripe enough.

My kids love to help make applesauce.

The result of 5 hours of hard fruity labor.

• The other day Kent was outside doing something with the tile and he motioned me over to the window.  He mouthed something to me but I wasn't sure what he was saying. It looked like he said, "Whose bunny is that?"  I knew that couldn't be right so I walked over to the window and opened it to see what he was saying.  He repeated: "Whose bunny is that?  Do you know where it came from?"  It was the weirdest most random thing.  The little fluffy hairball was just sitting there eating our grass.  I called a few neighbors to see if it was theirs but nobody claimed it.  Kent got the camera and took pictures of it so I could put it on my blog.  Then the bunny hopped away and out the hole in the fence. (I am sure it had nothing to do with the fact that my kids all heard about the bunny and came running outside and were chasing it.) We saw the bunny again the next day in our garage just hanging out under our car.  If you are missing a bunny let me know.

Happy Day

The toilet is now out of the backyard and back into the bathroom.  Hooray.  Kent finished the tile this weekend and it looks great!  He slaved on that tile so it is good to have it done.  We just have to do the molding around the bottom and a few more finishing touches and then our bathroom will be done. I love the changes.

Stitches

Yep. This time it was Ian's turn. He was running to the bathroom in our master bedroom and as he turned the corner he whacked his head on the strike plate.  (Picture on the left).  He actually somehow managed to ricochet his head from the strike plate on one side to the door frame on the other.  One side got a gash and the other had a goose egg.  Brilliant.

 Ow.

 At our instacare they have a numbing gel that they apply to the wound every 5 minutes for 20 minutes. The area is then numb without having to use a shot.  Ian was pretty excited about that because he was VERY nervous about getting a shot.  He got to wear a stylish headband while he was getting numb.

 Two stitches. 

Bathroom Madness

That title makes it sound really interesting and intriguing doesn't it?  Our kids bathroom is still torn up.  We were waiting for a friend to come help Kent with the floor boards.  Today they got it done.

That gray stuff is dryer lint.  Our dryer exhaust has to go from the laundry closet next to the bathroom through several walls and finally out the door.  Apparently lots of lint gets out of the pipe, creating a linty fire hazard.

New floor complete with new toilet flange.  I am actually kind of excited about the new flange.  Why, you ask?  I will tell you why.  The old flange was just not doing the job right.  Kent had to use 3 (count them) wax rings to get the toilet to seal when we replaced "big blue" (the beloved blue throne).  Now with the new flange we will get a super awesome seal with only 1 wax ring.  Excitement, people!  (Hey, you'd be excited if you didn't have to worry about toilet water leaking in your basement and getting your carpet all wet.)

Now that the floor is in we can finally start the tile and get that room put back together!  Hopefully it will be done by next weekend.  I want my kids to be able to use their own bathroom again.

'Nother skirt

These skirts are so fun and easy to make.  I am so excited about this one because my favorite color is red and I especially love how red and blad and white look together.  I made a matching shirt for the skirt by adding a ruffle and some hearts to a 3 dollar Wal-mart shirt.  I can't wait for Adele to wear this to church tomorrow.



Destruction

Here's our kids bathroom.  We decided to re-do the tile.  So here's some of the demolition pictures.

I told Kent so smile but he said he wanted to make a grumpy face instead.

Since the floor is all rotted out by the toilet pipes we are going to have to rip out the floor and put new plywood in before doing the tile.  Home improvement projects always start out small and end much bigger.  We also decided to paint while the floor was out.  We still need to do another coat of paint but so far I like it!

First Day of Preschool

Adele has been excited and waiting for WEEKS for preschool to start.  (I have too actually.)  She was SOOOOOO excited that she finally got to go to "Mrs. Smiley's" preschool.

I have 2 free hours with no kids.  What will I do with myself?  I am giddy just thinking about it.