Sunday Update/Utah Vacation Part 3

This is the third and final installment of our vacation to Utah. After William returned to us we headed up to his parents home for a little family reunion with his sisters families. Oma and Opa live up a canyon just over the border in Idaho.

Isn't this just the prettiest place? They moved here about five years ago. They now raise acres of alfalfa and are the hardest working retired people we know!

There is a tree house that our Uncle Richie built the tree house and swing and Opa added the slide. It it s a great spot, I am actually reading a magazine while the kids play!
After the rest of the cousins showed up there were lots of water fights. Poor Oma!
Opa took everyone down to his friends dairy farm to milk the cows. They had a great time in the back of his old truck. I spent the whole time picturing what could happen to a truckload of kids with no seat belts but of course they were fine.
A major hit of the whole event was when Opa arranged to borrow his neighbors little pony for the kids to take turns riding. This was soooo much fun! Here are my boys being cowboys. That is the a view of their alfalfa fields and the mountain behind. So pretty.
Joshua loved the pony! He kept insisting it was "my horse!" If they were lucky he let the other kids ride too but I think he managed more rides than anybody.

We finished up with fireworks on the fourth. My kids have never really been allowed to stay up long enough to participate in this one so they really loved doing this with Uncle Glendon. That kid in the background in orange is Matthew. I thought that was great symbolism to have my kid in a picture with fireworks since William and I had our first date 19 years ago on the fourth. Wow!

It sure was a fun trip! We will now return to our regularly scheduled Sunday update. Thanks for your patience!

Fishin' in the backyard

Okay, I may have really lost it this time! My kids decided to fill up the wading pool this afternoon. I had to go to Wal-mart. Matthew says to me "wouldn't it be cool to have real fish in the pool Mom?"I laughed and said sure it would. So at Wal-mart I got to thinking and ended up bringing home 4 feeder goldfish and a little net. So my kids have been fishing in the backyard for the last hour. They take turns with the net and see how many fish they can catch before the egg timer runs out.

I know, this is really sort of gross and I honestly cannot believe I let them do this! I may have crossed that fine line between cool/fun Mom and wacko/crazy Lady!


But man they had a lot of fun--until the fish expired one by one and were then treated to an ocean cruise, as my Mother used to say.

So will you all still be my friend or am I too wacko?

A really good sewing day

Sometimes I really wish I could figure out what makes the difference between a really productive today and an unproductive day. The day before yesterday was a really great sewing day. I was able to work on two different projects I have wanted to try. My kids did have summer school but we also had friends over. Yesterday was a total wash, got nothing at all done and there were no friends over. I don't know, wish I could figure it out. Anyhow, here are some of my projects that day.

I saw a girl wearing a skirt like this at Target the other day and then I saw her again at the pool. This must have been a sign that I needed one too right? I had seen this skirt, made from your favorite old pair of jeans around blogland and after seeing that cute girl I couldn't get it out of my head. I googled it and found this tutorial to be the best. I experimented on Brittany's first, she has more old jeans than I do. I followed the tutorial except I didn't unpick the inner leg seam, I just cut up it. I wanted to keep the stitching as a bit of decorative stitching. And I folded the edge over on the back seam so it wouldn't fray too much. Oh, the tutorial also has you cut off the waistband. I guess that would be good if your weren't using your own jeans and had to make it fit but I left mine alone. Oh, and I didn't hem it or anything I kind of like the soft frayed edge. In fact I washed them before we wore them to make them fray. All said and done it was a really easy project, which you can tell since I was able to make two in the same day. I am thinking of making another for Brittany, shorter with a ruffle all around. I might embroider around the bottom of one for her too. I love mine, it is cool and comfy and since it came from a favorite pair of jeans that were fading in the knees(I hate that!), I knew it would fit from the start!

This purse. I have had this in my head for a long time. I want to make one like Alicia did here. Lots of colorful patchwork but I like the shape of my green polka-dot purse so I have been trying to figure out a pattern. I want to use some of my vintage sheets that are coming from that swap to make the patchwork.

This is the inside. I need two pockets. One for keys and lipstick and one for cell phone. I love these fabrics and I am really happy how this one turned out.

So that was my really productive sewing day. Just think what I could do if all my days were this productive?!

Meet Spike!

This is Spike! How did my baby come to be called Spike? Well while we were in Utah my mom and sister decided he would look cute with spiky hair. So out came the gel and hairspray and water and tadah! Spiky hair! To which Uncle Nate said "Hey Spike!" Joshua loved the attention apparently because now every time he combs his hair, or tries to put a stray headband on his head, he says "I Spike!" Today I asked him if he wanted to be Spike. "Yeah!" So we spiked him. You can't really tell in this picture but his hair is spiky. I should have taken another one but he tried so hard to get a good cheesy one I just had to use this one.

Oh, and Spike also runs into doors and walls a lot, thus the bruise on his head. Oh yeah, he twirls his hair when he is tired too and them pulls so the right side of his head has a lot less hair on it. But hey, a tough guy like Spike can handle stuff like that right?

Oh, what do you do in the Summertime?

I have had a lot of fun the last week or so looking at some of the fun things my blogland friends have been doing with their kids this summer. I know I could check out books from the library for great ideas but sometimes it is nice to see something in action that kids really liked. So I thought I would share some of the things we have been doing, maybe there will be something you haven't thought of! This may actually become a semi-regular feature.



Painting canvases! This is one of our all time favorite kid activities. I know I have posted about this before but we really do love it. It was a great activity last week when it was too hot to be outside.
I buy these packages of canvas panels at Wal-mart. You get three of this big size for $3.88! They have smaller too but my kids think they have hit the jackpot when they get to use the big ones. Brittany is pretty good at coming up with her own compositions but Matthew needs a bit of help. He will usually pick a subject, then I draw it, he outlines it with the paint pen and then paints inside. Sort of like creating our own paint by numbers. We use regular acrylic craft paint. Lots of colors that way. When they are all done we paint the clear varnish over the top. It makes it nice an shiny and the colors are even brighter.
This was Matthew's from last week when we painted and watched Little House on the Prairie. I copied the planes from a coloring page I found when I googled airplanes. He added everything else.




This was Brittany's painting inspired by a hike we took on vacation. However, there wasn't a lovely lady in pink on the hike, she added her!

These are some finished masterpieces the kids have done. They are on display on my upstairs landing. I usually change out these canvases with new pieces. But I really like these two, and I have been out of this size canvas. I think it is great for my kids to have their creations appreciated like this, plus they just make me happy!

Brittany's List

Our good friend Circe has darling daughters. One of them, Ruby has tagged my daughter Brittany and she is very excited to share this list with you!

What were you doing ten years ago? Waiting to be born

What were you doing five years ago?

practicing for my first ballet recital

What were you doing one year ago? Settling into our new house

What were you doing yesterday? Starting summer school!

What are your five favorite snacks?pretzels, popcorn, vanilla wafers, goldfish, barbecue chips

What are your five favorite books? Harry potter, A series of Unfortunate Events, Marley, a dog like no other, No flying in the house, Princess Academy

Five places you would run away to: Oma and Opa's house, Grandma and Grandpa's house, Anna's house, Emme's house and Baylee's house

Five things you hate: pickles, shots, tomatoes, cucumbers, stubbing my toe

Five things you love: Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, and play dates

I tag Circe! Have fun!

Oh, what do you do in the Summertime?

Making Ice Cream!

I'm sure lots of people have done this one before but it had been awhile for us and now we are making this stuff all the time! This is homemade ice cream you make without an ice cream maker. In one bag you put 1/2 cup half and half or milk. We used the half and half because we are skim milk drinkers and it is better with half and half or milk that isn't "blue" as my hubby claims skim is. Anyway, 1/2 cup milk or cream, 1 T sugar, 1/4 t vanilla. Make sure you seal it really well.
In a bigger freezer bag fill half the bag with ice add 6T of salt. I didn't have rock salt, kosher salt works, table salt doesn't seem to work as well. Put your ice cream mix inside the big bag and seal well.
Then start shaking! I actually wouldn't recommend this as indoor activity as pictured, better outside! (Look at how serious Matthew is about his ice cream?!)


After about 5-10 minutes of shaking you get this! I think you could probably put two servings in one bag but then everyone wouldn't hvae to work for it! I rinse the inside bag off quickly so we don't have salty ice cream. If you empty your salt water outside make sure you don't dump it on any plants! Have fun!

Does this skirt make me look like a bed?

I think this will be my new uniform of summer! I finished this fast little skirt this weekend and I really like it. I love my capri pants but lets face it, when it is really hot those extra 3 little inches aren't really cooling me down all that much. Skirts are so much cooler so I decided to work on some. Here is the silly part, I made this one out of a really old sheet. I don't quite dare say vintage because I was not the original owner but I can tell it is old. That means it is really soft too. So what I am wondering is, does this skirt make me look like a bed? Hope not, cause I plan on making more!

**Don't forget to enter the giveaway on yesterday's post! You have until Wednesday night!

Good shopping and a giveaway!

Oh, I am in such a happy mood! My kids started summer school today. It is for four hours four days a week. Matthew's is a "reading treasure chest" and Brittany's is a "science and math exploration" . I was feeling like a big meanie this morning, making them go to school in the summer. Brittany especially wasn't tooexcited. But then they came home and had loved it! Yeah for us all!
This meant I could run errands this morning with only Joshua! So much more fun! Miracles of miracles I found a great swim suit! I know this is probably more than weird to post about, but I am so excited and I have to tell someone so of course it has to be my bloggy friends! I have to tell you how perfect this suit is! (Well for a swimsuit at least). It is my favorite colors, has that great tummy sucking stuff inside, covers all my parts, doesn't leave me with loads of cleavage hang out and has this tiny little skirt to make me feel a bit more secure. But not so much skirt to make me feel like a total granny! Plus it was at Ross so it only cost me 20 bucks! Hurray for me! Hurray for my kids because now I may take them swimming! Too bad I didn't find it before I spent all that time in Utah in a yucky swimsuit...
Another silly purchase making me happy. I bought this miniature water bottles on clearance at Wal-mart today! 25 cents each! I love them because my kids can get them out of the fridge themselves and they like their small size so they drink more. They even have a spill proof valve. I actually bought a few of these last week and we have used them so much I bought more today. We had been using this refill method with regular water bottles but I like that these will survive the dishwasher.

And for surviving my lame post on swimsuits and water bottles you get rewarded with a giveaway! Would you believe this is my 400th post?! I can't believe I have had that much to put out into cyberspace! It sure has been fun! So I am giving away one of the pendants I made for the Jewels of the Sea swap I am in. It is on a linen cord and does have a little clasp so you can remove your jewel from its shell and put it right on! All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me what you love about blogging and how long you have been a blogger! I will draw a winner Wednesday at 10pm pacific time.

WINNER!
Would you believe my sister-in-law Tattingbug won? AND she won Loveboxes giveaway too! Talk about a luck day! Wow!

Sunday Update/The trip to Utah part two!

My mom had one request on the trip we all took to Bear Lake. She wanted a new picture of the five grandkids. So I tried. I tried reeealllly hard. This is my very best. Of course, my sister's children look just about perfect. Libby, hands daintily on her knees, Abby perfect little smile. My boys look like they are being punished. At least Brittany smiled. Trust me, this was actually a near miracle. Matthew was not in the mood and Joshua refuses to sit down for pictures. It always amazes me that black and white unifies a little group like this so well. Love black and white. Hope Mom likes it.
So our trip to Bear Lake was planned by these three brothers. My dad and his two brothers. I will probably be grounded for life when my dad finds out I posted this picture, but it is so CUTE! It just makes me smile to see these three together like that. This trip was a reunion of these three brothers' grown families and it was a blast!

This is the whole group, minus my good hubby who had to fly home to go back to work and hadn't rejoined us at this point. I love this picture. The last time anything like this was taken at least half of the adult cousins were still in diapers! Just look at us now!

There was of course lots of beach activity. This is Matthew with the great Uncle Nate, my sister's husband. He is always great but especially this trip when he absorbed my three kids into his fun Dad activities. He took them on innumerable wave runner rides.

And let's not forget it was Uncle Nate who found big shovels in the condo garage and taught the kids how to really make sand castles! Matthew loved digging rivers too.

Joshua just plan loved the sand. Digging it, splashing water in it and rolling it. Basically becoming Mr. Sandman! (Now where was that smile when I needed it for pictures?)

I cannot believe I am posting this picture but what the heck! There are so few to prove I was actually there! Brittany and I have a ball with Uncle Nate's sand castle building methods too!

And finally, The Super Grandma and grandkids! Again, my kids not their best picture. Joshua looks like he is saying his standard "eeeeew!" Oh well, Grandma looks good. And she really is the super Grandma.

She thought it would be fun to do an Easter egg hunt in June...and it was!

It was a great trip, loads of good memories! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

I just noticed I am almost to 400 posts! Gonna have to have a give-away next week I think!

A Perfect Day!

It has been a good day! Our horrid heat wave seems to have broken and it was a full 20 degrees cooler today! I woke up, opened my window and remembered this really can be a nice place to live. So after cleaning a few bathrooms this morning the kids and I went to the library and made our own reading bugs. Cute aren't they? I mean the bugs, the kids go without saying!

Believe it or not my kids really wanted to paint with me today and I convinced them to paint while we watched some of the first season of Little House on the Prairie that we checked out from our library. Man I loved that show when I was a kid and it was fun to share it with my kids. Not sure I will get them to do it again but it was fun while it lasted.

Dinner was chicken taquitos which EVERYONE liked! That is pretty amazing for there not to have to be slightly different variation on the main dish for everyone so I was happy about that.

And finally I got a few of the dolls I finished on our trip listed in the shop. I like this bunch a whole lot! They are all over in the shop looking for new homes!

So now I am off to watch Gilmore Girls with hubby. Have to say, it was a pretty perfect day!

A darling Dutch swap and my wacky laundry

While we were gone I received the BEST swap from Heleen in the Netherlands! It was a Matryoshka doll swap. You were supposed to use the image of one to create a fun present. I wimped out and just did one of my nesting dolls. Heleen on the other hand put the image on a darling bag. She also sent me wonderful Dutch goodies.


This is the whole package. She those fun paper dolls, you will be seeing more of them when I get them put together.





Here is a close up of the bag. She embroidered the face and then trimmed the whole thing in wonderful trims and fabrics that are not so common here in the States. Isn't she just gorgeous. I already used it yesterday when I discovered my purse was invested with ants just before I went out to run errands(yes, ants! gotta love California in the summer!) The only thing is she is so lovely I am kind of afraid to use her, I mean anything could happen to her if she becomes my purse! So she may have to perform some other less dangerous task.





When I read my partner was from the Netherlands I thought how great it would be to receive some little Dutch fabrics in my doll. Not only was she made of the very sort of thing I dreamed of, but Heleen sent me some yummy snippets of my own! This was such a great swap!



And just so you will have further evidence of what a nut I am I had to show you today's laundry. Did your mom dry sheets on the line when you were a kid? Mine did and I still remember how great it was to go to bed after laundry day and smell those wonderful sheets. Well it has been insanely hot around here for the Bay Area, above 105 all week. So I got to thinking that I wished I could dry sheets on the line because they would dry so fast and smell so good. So this was my solution today. I dried all our bed linen this way and my bathroom rugs. I am really looking forward to crawling between these babies!


P.S. I am hoping for a little shop update tomorrow. I finished four new little nesting dolls on the looooong ride home from our vacation.

A great vacation to Utah part one!

Whew! coming home from a trip is more work than going and you don't have the fun trip to look forward too anymore! But my house is relatively picked up, the washing machine and dryer are doing their best to get caught up and we now have food in the house. I have so many pictures of our fun trip you are probably going to be hearing about it in three parts. Now if you don't want a little tour of our adventures come back tomorrow and I will show you one of my gorgeous swaps I received while I was gone. However, I have to stick some of these pictures in here because the idea that this is something of a journal for my family and someday I might actually have it put in a book is one of my justifications for blogging. So bear with me please! Or like I said, come back tomorrow!
Well the day after we got to my Mom and Dad's house it was Joshua's birthday. This is the great cake my mom made him. James is taking a tour through Candyland. Cute huh? He loved it!

One of the things my kids had to do was visit the Treehouse Children's Museum in Ogden. This is what my kids would look like if they formed their own firestation, something they may have to do if this state doesn't stop igniting itself! Course if Joshy is driving we are all probably in big trouble.

Brittany loves this room full of dolls and always has to pick the best case to have her picture taken in front of. Joshy snuck in there right before the click!

We had some great play dates with old friends. This is Matthew with his buddy Dallen. I loved that they never skipped a beat, just picked up where they left off playing last summer.
Brittany and her friend Baylee had a dress-up tea party in Grandma's fabulous dress-ups. I was playing with the color settings to make it look vintagey. I think I will send this one to her friend.



This was the goodbye hug when Baylee had to leave. It had me so choked up I was almost ready to call the moving company!



**Before I forget I was supposed to choose a winner for my giveaway during Vanessa's tea party. The lucky winner according to the random generator is Jenny from the Polka Dot Pixie! I am a bit intimidated to send her off, Jenny makes amazing paper mache and clay dolls, I love her work!

We are back!

We made it back! But this is what it looks like around here (worse actually, now the stuff inside the suitcases is strewn all over!). I just wanted to say hello, and boy did I miss my bloggy friends! Hopefully I will get to visit tonight after things are put back together and the kids are in bed!

My Sweet Imaginations

I have been visiting this beautiful blog the last few weeks and I just have to share. Her name is Susan and she makes these amazing clothespin dolls! She also paints darling paintings for children's rooms. I used to see her on ebay and loved her work and then one day she left me a comment on my blog! The wonder of blogland! Her blog is My Sweet Imaginations and so is her shop. Go check them out if you want to see some really lovely things!

Some Swaps!

Before we went on vacation I was killing myself trying to finish a couple of swaps. Thought I would show you.

These are the pendants I made for the jewels of the sea. I made six and will get six back. I can hardly wait to see what is in my mailbox when I get home!
I sort of tied them to seashells and bagged them in littel cellophane bags. I was quite pleased with myself!


I also joined the Russian Doll swap. This was lots of fun! I found some reproduction fabric from the 30's. Love their bright happy colors. I am hoping to bring a few of these back finished from my trip to put in the shop.