Finished Projects this fall!

13 Dec

I finished 4 more pairs of slippers, for a total of 7 pairs of slippers this fall.

Made my own maternity Jeans.

I made a quilted tote bag for a friend (but forgot to take a picture-too bad, the fabric was BEAUTIFUL)

Helped 2 of my children sew little gifts for their teachers- one kitty-cat felt sunglasses case and one very fat Reindeer felt tree ornament. (also forgot to take pictures, doh!)

One large Totoro Pillow Buddy out of fleece. I watched this youtube video on how to draw Totoro and get the proportions right. My drawing was great (I think.)

my finished softie….well… My Totoro looks more like a bowling pin with bunny ears. Sigh.

Note to self. Remember last time I made a pattern for a stuffed object?

Same problem. I need to add more width to the pattern to account for the fatness of stuffing. Maybe I’ll remember that next time since I’ve made this mistake twice now.

Oh well, Cutie Pie will still love him on Christmas morning.

And do I feel awesome for finishing all this–while being pregnant and Primary President?

Yes. Yes I do.

Petting Reindeer Ponies

11 Dec

This is Rudolf. He was in our town’s Christmas Parade and after the parade, we were so lucky that he came by where we were parked. Cutie Pie was so excited to pet him. Seeing pure joy on your children’s faces is definitely one of the perks of being a parent.

Christmas Song Medley

8 Dec

This is utterly and completely wrong for so many reasons, but I laugh every time. Thanks, kids, for introducing me to Julian Smith. Check it out:

Drama worthy of Days of our Lives

1 Dec

So….hopefully child services doesn’t hunt me down after this post, because this is way worse than the time I made tuna noodle casserole and forgot to put the tuna in.

What happened was, I was doing a Mary Kay Christmas Open House last night and my sister was helping me. She picked up the key for the room we were renting before 5pm, when the Chamber of Commerce building closed for the night.

At just before 7 pm we get there, unlock the door and go in. I deposit my coat and purse and run to the bathroom, ’cause I have to do that a lot these days. She brings in her 5 month old baby in his car seat/carrier. Then we go back out to my car to bring in all the wonderful Mary Kay stuff.

She props the door open, but I say, “Let’s close it so we don’t let all the heat out.”

Door closed, we unload my car onto the sidewalk and go back to open the door.

It is locked.

Key to door is inside.

Baby is inside.

My purse, cell phone, and car keys are inside.

My sister’s purse, cell phone and car keys are inside.

It is way after 5 and everything is closed downtown.

I tell my sister to wait by the door where she can at least see her baby. I waddle my pregnant self down to the one building whose lights are still on. It turns out to be a gym. There are 3 guys inside working out, but the door is locked and they have music turned up super loud (I can hear it outside) so they don’t hear me or see me banging on the window. I decide they might assault me instead of helping me anyway, so I seek elsewhere.

Think to self–3 blocks down is a Dollar General, that will still be open, and I can at least call the police.

Luck is with me and only 1 and 1/2 blocks down is a little coffee shop still open. I happen to have met the owner and know he is nice–though he probably doesn’t remember me.

I go in and ask if I can borrow his phone and a phone book–ashamedly explaining why I need to borrow said items. I look in phone book and he oh so helpfully and non-judgementaly finds the home phone number of the secretary at the Chamber of Commerce.

We reach her husband who gives us her cell number. She is almost home, but turns around and comes the 20 minute drive back into town for the sake of the baby.

The coffee shop guy loans me his coat after asking where mine is and I am forced to admit that it is locked inside the building as well.

I waddle myself back to the Chamber building to give my sister the good news. Her baby will not be locked in the building alone overnight.

The lady comes and lets us in and explains that the door only permanently unlocks if you use an allan wrench at a certain place on the inside of the door. She says perhaps they should include one with the key. I want to say that perhaps just warning people that the door doesn’t unlock permanently would be a good start–but I’m worried that I’ll sound critical–so I don’t say it.

She did drive all the way back into town for us, after all.

My sister and I attempt to compose ourselves and set up for the open house–some of the guests are already there by now and know for themselves what gooses we are.

When I tell DH about the whole thing later, he comments that I should have kept the key with me all the time.

I begin whining that my maternity dress doesn’t have pockets (a pet peeve of mine that is definitely justified by the preceeding drama.)

Attitude

30 Nov

It is amazing how my attitude sinks in direct proportion to how low the baby is sitting each day.

Then again, when I spend a sleepless night because my legs hurt so badly and I’m sure my hips are going to pop out of their sockets from the pressure, perhaps it isn’t surprising that I’m crabby and impatient and depressed the next morning.

The same thing happened to me on Saturday night. So Sunday (my birthday) I was not a pleasant person to be around. Then Monday the baby floated back up and I became much more cheerful.

Now it is Wednesday and we are both down, down, down.

What to get the kids for Christmas

30 Nov

As you consider gifts for your children this year, you may find this article helpful. I got some ideas!

The 5 best toys of all time

❤ GlowWorm

Free Book

22 Nov

If you are suffering from insomnia like I am, you may be quite happy to enjoy a free book of what seems to be exceptionally good quality.

Edmund the Persuader

Today I am thankful for libraries, friends, and websites that share lovely books for free.

Happy Birthday, Peach Pie

16 Nov

Peach Pie turned 6 last week!

She asked for bean salad & tortilla chips for dinner and carrot cake for desert. What a good girl to ask for such easy food for me to make.

She wanted one of those big Barbie heads that you can style the hair. She has wanted it for a whole year, so she got it. I’m pretty sure she loves it, but the picture of her with it, her eyes are half closed, so she looks possessed and I’m not posting it.

I also managed to finish her slippers! This pair took me the longest time because I forgot about my sewing machine and hand sewed all those hearts on.

Duh, GlowWorm, way to create more work for yourself.

A few days later, I finished Pumpkin Pie’s slippers. Yay! 3 down, 2 to go.

Peach Pie is my most dramatic child–usually in a happy way. Pumpkin Pie takes the Oscar for nuclear meltdowns of woe.

Peach Pie laughs the most, dances the most, sings the most, hugs the most (and I’m talking about running from the other side of the room and jumping on you in a koala bear/monkey kind of hug) and she TALKS the most.

She went to Kindergarten this fall, and the house is so quiet during the day now. No longer do I have her constant monologue/questions/bossy paragraphs about what I should be doing. It is nice to have quiet. But I miss her little voice, too. I’ll be cleaning or driving somewhere and realize something is missing. There is no little voice asking me where we are going or what I am doing.

The other day I found a movie that she had made of herself on the computer.

#1 I don’t even know how to use our computer to do that. I don’t know how to post it so you can enjoy it also. I can’t even find it again to watch it. And I’m not that computer illiterate either.

#2 Many times the constant talking didn’t quite make sense to me, but I figured it was because I wasn’t always really listening. After watching her video, I realized that she often does not complete a sentence or relate causality clearly. In other words, sometime she just doesn’t make sense.

#3 Her video was hilarious. She was clearly copying a you tube video I had watched on how to style your hair with a flat iron. She mimicked the girl’s gestures and vocal inflections (rather valley girl style) almost perfectly, even though we only watched it once.

“Okay, what we are going to do today is a hair style and we have this pony tail holder…yadda yadda and you take it like this and braid it, and you have to do this because when we all go to the store we get cereal….and don’t forget to go to http://www.peachpie.com.”

That’s right. Apparently my six year old has her own website.

Peach pie loves to help me and often asks what job she can do for me. She loves to dance ballet. One of these days I might be able to find her a real dance teacher. (our town lists 3 in the phone book, but the numbers are either wrong or no one answers/returns calls.) Until then, we are making do with ballet class DVDs from Amazon.

When Cherry Pie was baptized, Peach Pie and Grandma Rosi were walking through the hall at the church. Peach Pie stopped at the picture of President Monson and said, “That’s my prophet.”

Very impressed, Grandma Rosie asked, “Do you have a picture of him in your house?”

“No, ” says Peach Pie, thoughtfully, “but we do have Mary Kay!”

(In my defense, we don’t have a picture of Mary Kay hanging on the wall. What was hanging on the wall in my office was a goal poster of the things I wanted to achieve in Mary Kay–pay off our mortgage, buy new clothes, take the kids to Disney World.)

Peach Pie likes all the normal food kids love, plus broccoli. Her favorite color is pink and right now, her favorite song is “Away in a Manger.” She wants to go to Disney World and has saved up $3 and some change to help pay for our trip.

She always notices things that are inconsistent in what adults (ahem) do and asks me about it.

One morning I came downstairs to make breakfast. There on the counter was the delicious half of a chocolate cake my mother-in-law had given me, missing all the frosting from the top. Peach Pie was sitting on a stool near the cake.
I asked, “Did you lick the frosting off of my cake?”
She replied, “No, Mama.”
I said, raising my eyebrows, “It’s rude to lick the frosting off of my cake.”
She said, “But I just used my finger.”

There you go. Logic that cannot be argued.

Happy Day

15 Nov

This little Cutie Pie is so unique! It always amazes me how different each of my children are.

She loves to fill pages in with color and will spend over an hour carefully filling a shape in with marker. While she colors, she sings, “A Happy Day, a happy day.” (Think Mickey and the Beanstalk-“My what a happy day”)

Every morning, she asks for toast with jam and a “friday egg.” I love that she likes eggs. Such a healthy food.

Of all my children, she is the only one who has loved puzzles. She loves putting the pieces in wooden puzzles, things that snap together, building towers with blocks –anything that is like a puzzle.

She is also the most rambunctious and fearless. She will jump off anything and actually laughs and asks for more when her big uncles throw her up in the air.

Right now she loves farm animals, especially horses and “oinkies”. She spends lots of time each day tying up her horses, building walls for them to walk on, and riding anything that might substitute for a horse, like the arm of my overstuffed rocking chair– which now has no cloth covering it, thanks to her rough riding.

She blames anything bad on Swiper the Fox. She will often ask me to watch over her food/toys/clothing so that “Swiper can’t get it.”

When I ask her to pick up her shoes or jacket, she will first say, “But I’m too bigger enough to do that.” When I insist, she will sometimes decide to comply and sigh and say, “alright.”

She and I have had a great time together this fall with all the big kids gone to school. We’ll see what happens when we throw a new baby in the mix.

Mary Kay is AWESOME!

9 Nov

Today I got the best message ever from a customer. For several years, she has purchased Timewise age-fighting moisturizer from me, but that was all she wanted. Yesterday she came to me asking for help. Her eyelids were so dry, they had scales and were puffy, and her cheeks were bumpy all over as if she had poison ivy.

I was seriously worried, her face looked so bad, and actually asked her if she might need to see a doctor. She said it would take months to get an appointment with a dermatologist, and wanted to know what I could do for her. I told her she needed to use Mary Kay cleanser with her moisturizer–because products from different lines don’t always work well together. I also explained that she should never use cleanser on her eyes, just our oil-free eye-makeup remover. I sent her home with a miracle set, firming eye cream, oil-free eye-makeup remover, and the targeted action eye revitalizer (which is for dark circles, another of her problems.)

She texted me today (a message 5 texts long) so excited because after only 24 hours of using 100% Mary Kay, the bumps were gone from her cheeks. The extreme dry patches on her eyelids that had been there for 2 months were gone and her face felt smooth and good. I had told her to wait a couple of days on the eye revitalizer because it tingles when you use it and I was afraid it would burn her dry skin. But she’s already using it and can already tell that her dark circles are looking better!!

I’m so happy right now!!!! I really truly helped her and I made her happy. That’s why I love my Mary Kay Business!!

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →