I spy with my little eye...

a shameless steal. I prefer to say "borrow" though. I saw this posted on Etsy and figured I could make it too. Because I feel bad about just using the design I'll add a link to the store where people can buy them. So, if you can't make one, please buy it from here: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5318821

She has lots of great shapes to choose from. I just liked the rocket. My son loves it. Here it is:




I filled this one with 'Dress It Up' buttons from Michaels craft store. This should keep him busy at restaurants and long car trips. It's fun!

Loving Lavender

A while ago Martha Stewart had on her show the top crafter (Black Apple) on Etsy. She did a tutorial for making her dolls. I've been meaning to do it ever since I saw it and each trip to JoAnn's I'd get another item (muslin one trip, invisible markers another- which I LOVE, then felt, then embroidery thread, polyfill, etc.). It seemed like it would never get made! Not to mention the pattern is supposed to be enlarged 150% and I kept forgetting to put it in my car to take to get enlarged. Well, I saw another internet blogger made the doll and she filled hers with lavender for "relaxing bedtime vibes", which I tought was a GREAT idea. Of course that meant another trip out for the lavender! But I did it! I got my behind in gear and commited to making it for baby (especially since she hasn't been sleeping well at night). Lavender is expensive (at least the organic kind, which is all my local health food store had)!!!! It was $43/pound! Luckily it weighs next to nothing! I bought $3 worth and head plenty left over. I didn't end up enlarging it because baby prefers small dolls anyhow, so that saved a trip. Oh, and ever since she has been sleeping with it she has slept through the night again- that lavender was worth every penny! Here's "New Baby" as she's known at our house (My daughter calls all her dolls baby) cozy on my teacup collection:




And here's the real baby for comparison:


And since I had leftover lavender and Teacher Appreciation Week at my son's school is this week, last night I made these eye pillows and filled them with the leftovers and also added some organic flax seeds. I need to make myself one of these (and I think my husband wants one too! Need to find more manly material though!):

Mother's Day gifts

Okay, I couldn't post this earlier because it might have given away the surprise, but here is what the Mom's got for Mother's Day:

The Karen collection:















The Patricia collection:

Linings and invisible zippers and darts oh my!

Now imagine me singing that to the tune of "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!" while finishing up my Mother's Day dress. It was (not) fun. But, it was fun to match baby. Some folks think it's corny, but as long as it's something I'm willing to wear, why not! And technically the dresses don't match, just the fabric. I will not try to make myself a garment without a pattern again though, this was a huge pain and completely imperfect. I don't know how the designers do it! Here's the dress (keep in mind this is after riding in the car for an hour, it's wrinkled):






So that my son wouldn't feel left out, I bought him and my husband matching shirts. He loved it. Here we are, even the matching doll:



The funny thing is when we got home from lunch our new neighbors were moving in. We went over and introduced ourselves and my husband added "we don't always match like this, we're not a cult or anything".

And speaking of the new neighbors...our dog must think he's died and went to Doggie Heaven. They have a 1 year old Jack Russell Terrier. Our dog, also a JRT is almost 11. They bark through the fence at eachother, which was cute for about a minute and a half, now it's annoying. We'll figure it out though!

So much to catch up on!

The day after the last post we went to the beach again. This time with my mom, a.k.a. Grandma. It was fun. It had sort of a deja vu feeling though. But to switch it up we ate lunch at the nearby hot dog stand.



The following day we got to see our friend Rachel and her cutie baby boy. We went to the park and had fun. She brought my son a Bob the builder playhouse which he LOVES! He got himself all "Bobed" up and went to work pretend fixing stuff. Thanks Rachel!




Then the next week was back to usual. Spring Break was over.

I did get around to making that Muno shirt for my son. Now he has 2 shirts he wants to wear all the time. At least I can wash one at a time!



And I got back to work on the nursery I've been working on (not ours). I made curtains, which get installed today.



I've also been going to the gym A LOT. I'm trying to get in shape for beach season! I've lost only 1 pound but my clothes fit better. I've spent time getting ready for a 5K race too. The last one I did was the Race for the Cure back in October 2004, so it had been a while. I decided to do the Buccaneer's Draft Day Dash. It's a fun one which I had done before back in 2001. It ends whith running through the tunnel and the finish line is on the 50-yard line. You can see yourself on the JumboTron as you cross the finish line. So even if you come in last you still feel like a winner! That race was this morning. A few weeks ago my treadmill time was 37:36, which I was okay with because my goal was to break 40 minutes. Tuesday night my treadmill time was 33:04. I was worried I wouldn't beat it today but...I DID! Not by much though. My time was 32:49 which puts my pace at 10 minutes 35 seconds per mile. Not bad for being older and having 2 kids! This is me(in the red hat, see the black arrow) after mile 1. And me in the stadium being goofy.





I'm also very excited about another couple projects I'm working on, but they are TOP SECRET for now, or at least until after Mother's Day! Then I'll post pictures. But so far I'm VERY happy with how things are turning out, that's all I can say!

A Day at the beach

Today the kids and I went to the beach. We picked up Nana and Aunt Jackie on the way. Nana packed a good lunch- Thank You! I specifically bought a beach umbrella to protect the kids from the sun, so naturally they spent a minute amount of time under it. They just wanted to go in and out of the water. This left me feeling like I was doing some short distance relay game of "touch the water, then go touch the towel, now back to the water- repeat this while increasing speed exponentially". Yes, at first the water was a novelty but once the children discovered they had the freedom to move between our beach spot and the waves, the trips increased. Once one child was deposited back to the towels, you can be sure the other child was either already in the water or on the way. I didn't need to go to the gym today! I think I got weight lifting and cardio all in one! Aunt Jackie and Nana helped out and I'm sure they are exhausted too! Lunchtime helped slow things down and if the kids weren't appreciative of the umbrella, I think Nana, Jackie, and I were. It was nice eating in it's shade. But once lunch was over it was back in the water (imagine that)! Sunscreen was applied numerous times and hopefully did the trick. I guess we'll find out come bedtime, that's generally when sunburns surface fully.

Then when we dropped Nana back off the kids got a treat of taking a bath together in her BIG bath tub. Thank you, thank you, thank you Nana (sorry for all the sand in the tub)! The kids fell asleep in the car about 15 minutes before getting back home (figures) and it was SOOO nice to just pick them up and put them down for a nap without getting their beds all sandy.

So I thought I'd post some pictures Nana took of the kids. They just LOOK like they are little surfer kids!

Yo Gabba Gabba!

If you have a child under the age of 6 you have probably seen this show. Kids LOVE it (and I'll bet a certain percent of the college population does too- watch it and you'll see what I mean). My 1 and 4 year olds can't get enough of it! It's only on weekends on Noggin. Well, in the show some of the kids dance wearing clothes with character faces on them. You can't find these clothes ANYWHERE. Sure they sell T-shirts online, but it's not the same as what the kids on the show wear! So when my 4 year old begged me, I said I'd make him a shirt. I made him a Brobee shirt (the little green one- not sure when that song will leave my brain). I finished it last night and he wore it all day today. We went to the gym, where he palyed in the kids section. The other kids loved it. Then Target, where every little kid we passed would point and say "Look Mama, He's got a Yo Gabba Gabba shirt on". Then the mall, and then the grocery store, all getting the same comments. My son is so proud to have the shirt he kept hugging me and thanking me all day. I have to admit it came out pretty cool. DJ Lance Rock would be proud. I made his dark green fur and unibrow from fuzzy material, so it's fun to touch too. Maybe I'll make myself one as well. But first he's got me commited to making two more, Muno is next and then Plex. I think I have to, just so he can have something else to wear because right now he's saying he's going to wear this shirt every day! Oh, and I feel bad for all the other Mama's we saw today too. They will probably be searching stores and websites looking for one for their kids! Here's some pictures:

April Fools!

My son and I played a trick on Daddy. We brought out sushi for dessert. I think he might have known, but played along saying "Sushi for dessert? Yuck!" but put one in his mouth (with chopsticks even) and feigned a look of surprise that made our son laugh. The sushi was really rice crispy treats with gummy worms inside rolled in fruit roll ups. It's not pictured but I used leftover edible grass from the Easter basket and mashed an orange jelly bean to look like ginger. We had a lot of fun making these!

They still make house calls

I had fun with my kids recently when they decided to play doctor. I was the patient and according to my 4 year-old one minute I had every illness known to man and the next minute I was cured. He's that good. Then it was the baby's turn to be doctor and she was lovin' it! Here's a pic.

Been busy "putting out fires"

Literally! A few weeks ago our toaster caught fire. I threw a dish towel over it but that caught fire too! Luckily we have a fire extinguisher under the sink and that worked brilliantly. Made a huge mess, but worked! Pop tart anyone??

Pictures of the client's room!

Bumper is DONE! Her crib is different than mine so we could only use one flower in the front middle. It looks nice though. So, now all that is left for me is curtains (it's curtains for you!) and a quilt. My friend/partner who does the art made this AWESOME 3-D tree with silk pink blossoms. It looks amazing, the pictures don't do it justice. She also made a litle squirrel to sit in the tree. He's so cute! So, here's some pictures of what we've got so far!

Paint away!

The art smock idea has finally come to fruition. I finished it today. The rickrack was more of a pain than I thought it would be, it didn't want to stay in the right spot to get sewn to the smock. And working with vinyl was... interesting. You can't pin anything because the pins will make permanent holes in the vinyl! Thank goodness for binder clips! Anyhow, here it is at long last. My husband says the rickrack is "frilly" but I say it's more of a "retro" touch. My son doesn't seem to mind though, and is quite happy that Mama sewed him something. What a sweet boy!

Best purchase I made in a while

I bought my daughter an umbrella stroller. I wish this had been the only stroller I bought and wish I had had it with my son too. It seriously rocks! The handlebars aren't set at "woodland gnome height" like most umbrella strollers are. So now I don't have to worry about looking like Quasimodo from pushing it. It has a hood, which where we live is a necessity to avoid the baby getting a George Hamilton tan. It also comes with a rain hood which completely keeps baby dry. This will come in handy this summer I'm sure. This thing has a basket too! So no worries about where to put the diapers and wipes. It even has an extra storage pouch on the back of the hood if needed. And if that isn't enough...it reclines! Baby can actually nap in it!(See picture) The leg rest pulls out and she can slumber away in comfort. The seat is removable and wachine washable. It's sturdy too, baby's butt won't be sagging from use a week later. Having said that...it's not cheap. However, if you buy at the start of the year you can get last years model (oh the horror- my material isn't en vouge anymore!) if that doesn't bother you, on e-bay for much much much less (even with shipping). It is so worth it! It turns like a dream (which is great in tight shopping areas). Oh, and it has a shoulder carry strap. Well, really this one didn't, that was an upgrade they did for this years model, but I called the manufacturer and ordered the strap for $10 to add on to mine. Now I can take both kids to the local amusment park and carry the stroller to the tram while holding both of them. What is this piece of genius engineering? A Maclaren Quest. If you are a mom and in the market for a stroller, seriously consider this one. The weight limit is 55 lbs too, so my 4 year old can use it too if need be. So I know I'll get years of use out of it. This is the last stroller I'll ever need. Well, enough said. can you tell I like it?

It does have one downfall, no snack tray/cup holder. But seriously, this reminds me to STOP and eat or drink with baby so we interact more. I sometimes think society puts too much pressure on people to go-go-go all the time. Stop, sit and eat! Your stomach will thank you in the long run!