Of sewing and procrastination

Phillip's birthday is on the 11th.  So you probably assume I'm working on a present for him.  

I have the fabric to make his present but instead I'm working on our Christmas Tree skirt for next year.  

Ah, I love Christmas.  However, I've had this fabric for the Christmas skirt for 9 years.  

That's right 9 years!

Every year I tell myself I'm going to make our tree skirt as we decorate for Christmas.  And every year I have too many projects going to even think about making it.  

So, HAPPY JULIANUARY!  I'm making a tree skirt.

I'm also making a pattern for the plastic training pants you put over the thick training underwear.  

I have some PUL fabric, I meant to use it to make all in one diapers but never managed to get around to it because Phillip potty trained and Maija can't wear cloth diapers anymore due to sensitive skin.

However, my nephew and Maija is starting to potty train and my mom wants a pattern to make them.  And I figured I should use that pricey fabric.

And then, after these projects I have a few others AND Phillip's birthday present to make.  It involves pleather, and I'm kind of excited about it.  I've never worked with pleather before.  Oh the possibilities!

Beautiful Girls.....

 I felt the need to "craft" last night.  I happened to have come across

this tutorial

And so with some fabric that I got from my Aunt Ila I made Big Sister, Lil' Sister skirts and some matching fabric roses for their hair.  I'm pretty sure the fabric is from the 80's and that Aunt Ila was planning on using it in a quilt as I have a whole lot of these 2 fabrics....possibly enough to make a matching skirt for me.

These took me about an hour.  The tutorial said it should only take about 15 minutes.  However, I added a sash all the way around the waist rather than just a tie in front or back and so I played around with it quite a bit before I decided I liked it.  The actual sewing part didn't take too long.  Maija's skirt is fuller than KatieJo's because I used the same width (44 inches) for K's as I did for M's, I just made K's longer.  

KatieJo was thrilled that she and Maija matched.  They both even wore jean jackets with their outfits.  The only difference is that Maija had on a white shirt and KatieJo wore a blue one (well and their tights were different colors if you want to get technical). 

Basketball

Samuel's first basketball game was last Saturday.  He's been so excited to play and was even more excited to show us his "skills" on the court.

So his team gets onto the court for the tip off and some kid from the other team gets the ball.

Samuel starts running at the kid.  

We assumed he was going to try to get the ball from him.

But, nope.  

He tackles the other kid.

Yep, you read that right.  

He TACKLED the other kid.

I'm pretty sure he thought he was playing football.

I know football is big in our house, but really....tackling?

I may have laughed....A LOT.

I got it on video just so I can re-live the magic of the day.

I also may have used the video to try to prove that our family may be a little over board on the football addiction.

I didn't work.

Hopefully tomorrow there won't be any tackling.

If I was a betting person I would wager that there will be.

Did I mention his number is 1?

Oh yeah, that one went to his head!

bragging

Here are some of the projects I made for Christmas....or just because.  There are more than I have pictured here.  However, I'm still trying to remember everything I made.

I thought it might be funny to start my post out with the picture above.  It wasn't a Christmas project, just something for the kids to hang artwork etc. on.  Now I just have to make the magnets to go with it.  Although that might wait until we move since I've made it 6 months without hanging anything up on the walls in the apartment (that was done on purpose) as we aren't planning on being here that long.

 I made these two quilts for the girls for Christmas.  It was a lot of work, but they look awesome and keep them warm!  We still have bits and pieces of the fabric everywhere since they are rag quilts.  But, that's the price you pay for cute things...right?  The pink and brown is Maija's and the lilac and greens is KatieJo's.

 With some money my Aunt Ila sent me for Christmas I bought the fabric to make the pillow below.  I LOVE the fabric, still not sure if I like the pillow though.  

 I didn't technically make this.  Maija drew Samuel's name for Christmas, and so she "made" this.  He is REALLY into chess right now and so I made "Wizards Chess"...well in Griffindor and Slytherin colors anyway.

 This is obviously not for Christmas.  I had an extra piece of wood lying around and I recently bought some mod podge....LOVE mod podge!  So I cut the letters out with my cricut and picked out some cute scrapbook paper, painted the sides and background a pale green and this is what I came up with.  I think it's cute. 

I may (or may not ) post pictures of my other projects from Christmas.  I made pj's, a Sunday bag for Maija, felt tool boxes & tools for Maija & Phillip's Sunday bags, crayon rolls for the Sunday bags, the pillow sham on KatieJo's bed to match her quilt (that was from Phillip to KatieJo), advent calender for my sister, nativity sets and well I can't remember the rest of the projects....there's a list somewhere....if I didn't throw it away.

Resolutions are for the birds

January...again.  Yes, I know it's the 7th.  However, Stuart left last Sunday to go to Baltimore.  He was subpoenaed to testify in my sisters' custody hearing and he didn't get back until yesterday. 

I had great intentions of things I wanted to get done while he was gone.  I got some of them done, like the throw pillow for our bed, a valentines sign, the oven cleaned out, other crafts and cleaning etc.  

Unfortunately I came down with a stomach bug and so all progress came to a stand still.

Maija had the bug too.  2 year-olds are SO much fun when they are sick!  For that matter so are 23 year-olds (if you say I'm not 23....we can't be friends anymore...LOL!)

Therefore I haven't managed to blog about my goals for the year.  

I really dislike the term resolutions.  Resolutions get broken or forgotten.

Goals, well they may too.  However, I have a better chance of keeping them!

So my goals for the year are........

Drum roll please.....

to be more organized. Don't laugh I'm serious.  

I don't have a set schedule for my day.  I get everything done, but it's not necessarily predictable.

And, Phillip and Maija need predictable.

So I wrote out a schedule.  I'd share but I don't schedule and tell...LOL!

I too (just like every other person on the planet) have a goal of excersizing more and possibly loosing weight.

I lost 30 pounds last year, not necessarily by doing what I'm supposed to.  I used to be good at excersizing and I'm not sure what happened.  So here's to being better at taking my health into considerationg!

Stuart and I have always gone on dates and one of my goals this year is to have those dates be more exciting!

You know like when we were single and trying to get each other to like us.  

Spontaneous...well as spontaneous as you can be with 4 children.  

Along the same lines; I am married to one fantastic man.  He is amazing and does so much for our family.  So I am aiming at being more vocal (or literal in this instance) about how awesome I think he is.  Not to you wonderful people, as much as you may want to know that I think he is awesome, but I'm going to try to give him a note for everyday this year that tells him how I feel.  Sounds silly?  Maybe, but I love him and he deserves it!

I'm trying to do the same for the kids.  In lunches, on their clothes they set out for the next day or on their pillows etc.  little love notes or thank you notes or whatever they may need to hear.

And finally.  Dave.  I love Dave (in very much a different way than I love Stuart).  For Christmas Stuart and I got Dave Ramsey's books Financial Peace and Total Money Makeover.  We've never used credit cards much, but we do have student loan debt....which we are working on abolishing.  I feel quite empowered after reading just one of the books and have never looked at our budget in quite the same way.  I feel like our eyes have been opened (and Stuart keeps paraphrasing Dave every chance he gets...LOL!)

I know that 2011 is going to be a fantastic year, and I'm excited to get started.  I for one don't typically start a year out saying that, but life is awesome!

My tantrum

The Christmas Season is my favorite time of the year.

I love Christmas lights and music.

This year though I didn't "cry when I took the tree down".

You see, we live in a small apartment.  Well, maybe it's not terribly small but we moved from a house that is easily twice as big AND we had a big yard AND our own driveway AND a shed to store things in.

AND most importantly a PLAYROOM. 

Here we have 1100 SMALL square feet and a storage unit across town that has more than half of our possessions....you know those things that we couldn't "part" with.  (Bring on summer because once we move I'm parting with a lot of that stuff!)

This leads me to be a GRINCH!

I'm crabby and cranky.  

The kids are driving me bonkers because there isn't any room for them to play.

Christmas "exploded" in our room this year because I didn't want to deal with them under the tree in our already cramped living room.

I am OH SO READY to be out of this apartment!  

Seriously...

Ready!

On a happier note, Happy New Year!  2011 is going to be a fabulous year....I can feel it in my bones.

The boy that I worry about the most....

turns out to be one of the sweetest boys I know.  

Some days I feel like pulling my hair out because he CAN NOT keep his room clean and can't ever find anything....I mean anything.  He's obnoxious, loud and well just plain boy.   

But, he was the kindest kid I know today; which brings tears to my eyes.  Because out of all the things that drive me crazy about him, my fear is that he will be "the mean mormon" kid.  Sounds silly, I know.  But I knew a few too many of those "mean mormon kids" and because of them I almost didn't join the Church.  

In Samuel's class at school they earn "economy dollars" all month long doing their "jobs", keeping their desk clean, turning in their work etc.  The last school day of the month they have an auction.  The kids can bring in items they want to auction off and they get to keep the "economy dollars" they earn from the auction.  

Now, there is a girl who isn't very well liked in his class.  There are various reasons she's not well liked none of which matter on this blog, however suffice it to say today the other kids weren't very nice.  She made a paper doll to auction off and no one bid.  That's right, no one.  As the teacher was telling her she was sorry that no one wanted her homemade doll Samuel stood up and said he wanted to buy it.  All he had left was 10 economy dollars and so he offered her that for the doll. 

I don't know how she reacted except that she thanked him. 

And, I am proud.  

Proud that he's a nice boy and proud that he did what was right.  He showed kindness to a little girl who probably doesn't see a lot of it.  Any time of year is a good time to show kindness, but what better time of year than at Christmas for him to have done something like this.  

I sure do love this boy, and I'm grateful for the lesson he taught me today!