little confession

I consider myself a DIYer. I feel a certain feeling of accomplishment and pride when I enhance my house with little projects to show my personality. I have been very stunted in this department lately. I feel very overwhelmed on my own trying to accomplish it all. I have gone as far as completely avoiding all my projects, maybe they will all do it themselves!  Well I have a nasty confession

I just hired someone to finish all the projects around the house I started and never finished before Soldier boy left. I feel a little guilty.

Somehow it has liberated me!
 Made me want to tackle the smaller projects I want to do with the kids, projects to decorate for the holidays. Installing crown molding, putting up baton board and finishing the master bath by myself, just it's a project I could comprehend. I am excited to see how it all turns out! Less than 200 days until we have to pack up and get out of here. I need to get the house in tip top order before Soldier boy comes back and we put the house up on the market. Now those project holding me back are someone else's job. I can spend the evening molding clay, painting burlap, and making jewelry with the kids, without feeling guilty that I should be doing this or that- someone else is doing it for me!

Our Deployment Counter

It's that time again! We kissed our favorite soldier boy goodbye for a while.

 We had a pretty decent first week. I was a bit surprised! BUT then day one of week two hit. The kids had their first bad day! The older two got in trouble at school and the other two were just ornery. I needed something to change their attitudes and help them cope.

I had seen many different count down calendars that I thought we could do. My problem with count down calendars are I lose track, weeks/days/months it works for a time or two but I would be counting every time the remaining chain, marble, Hershey Kisses. It would be overwhelming for me. Not to mention the initial time put into it I just didn't have the energy. They focus on a future date which in the army is never certain!

I really wanted something exciting, and uplifting. I'd done enough yelling, I wanted something to build them up, to have fun. Something my kids couldn't fight over. Something everyone was involved in. As I made my kids clean there rooms while I made dinner I was inspired. I knew just the thing for us.

We normally have a family night on Mondays. Our soldier left on a Monday. So we had our first family celebration party! The kids loved it! We celebrated surviving a week without daddy. I shared my coveted nine months supply of brownies my soldier boy left me with (SERIOUSLY BEST ANNIVERSARY PRESENT EVER!). We had ice cream and we talked about the things we did and wanted to do the following week.

A friend of mine had pinned journaling cards on Pinterest. I printed a few off and we wrote down the fun things we did that we wanted to share with daddy, each person got to add what they remembered. Later I had him email me a brief rundown of what he did and wrote it on the back. Our goal is to write one card every Monday and our soldier boy will contribute when he has internet access. When we are all done this deployment we will show daddy how we celebrated each week and then read thru our ups and downs. A way to celebrate our successes and acknowledge our failures and rough times.

My kids love it! They plan the meal for the following week's party at the end of our family celebration, they discuss all week long how they want to celebrate. I got off easy this week with Hamburgers and fries with ice cream as a treat. I am sure their requests will get more elaborate as time goes on. 

Here is our deployment COUNT UP board.

I had an old board we used as a desk top, just a 1x16 piece of pine that I had wrapped in batting and muslin. We found some patriotic material in my stash and quickly rewrapped it securing the material with a staple gun. The three older kids each picked a title and they designed a simple banner for the top that we just pinned on with stick pins. I found a few links for journal cards I printed them off (from HERE).

Two weeks down! Lots more to go...

Wedding gift

Life has gotten in the way of blogging these days. That doesn't mean I haven't been adding to my project pile and occasionally finishing one! I hope next month will provide me with a little bit of time to add a few more posts, and finish a few more projects.

In February we were able to attend a friends wedding. While talking to a group of friends about what to get the sweet couple, it was pretty evident that cash was always a good option but something fun, out of the ordinary and home made was best suited for our dear friend. Something that I put a little effort into, something that was unique, something that said I thought of you.

I came across the Dating Divas site and found the absolute perfect gift to make! (click here to see original) I modified it to my liking and the available supplies. I think I will be making more of these in the future. These tins are so easy to make. I thought, this would be a great gift to give my girls at youth group when they start dating, or this summer make one with boredom blunder ideas, or maybe conversation topics for our drive to Canada this summer.
I printed their design in grey scale on my printer, on my choice of card stock so it would better match the colors I wanted to use. I also used their link to fill the box with date ideas and I added a few of my own. Originally I planned on attaching corresponding gift certificates with certain date ideas but then life happened and I never had time to collect the necessary certificates, so I just added some cash to help create some of these fun ideas, or to do as they saw fit.

They had some of the cutest center pieces. I have made photo blocks before but they didn't turn out this cute! (Of course the photo doesn't do them justice! but take my word for it they were gorgeous)
Thanks A and S for inviting us to have such a fabulous time. Lots of good memories!

Refashions part 2

First off I have decided to rename my youngest whom I refer to here as "Ape Baby". She is no longer my baby :-( She is growing up way too fast. She has graduated from the baby stage, so keeping with the same theme but a more mature name, I will refer to her as Monkey Girl from now on.
So back to my refashion...

My second refashion of the week was for Monkey girl. This skirt was super easy! Nothing too special or out of the ordinary, but we preserved "the pants" for a while longer.

Now if I can just get her to keep clothes on longer than 20minutes we will be good.

Under my Flittering butterfly's instruction she is trying to pose for the shot LOL

No that lip balm is "mine"! One of the few words she has down really good!

So My husband has a very select few pairs of pants he loves. It is hard to find him clothes, he is so picky, and believe me looks have nothing to do with it! It is all about feel.
These were one of those pair of pants. They just hit the end of their life, rips and tears everywhere.
I loved how the knee frayed. A detail I wanted to preserve in the refashion.

I wanted to use it as the bottom of the pants but her waist/thighs were too big to just use the bottom part of the jean so I had to use the fray as the waist.

Is just ripped the rest of the front all the way across then cut the back part as the grains rarely match up and end up rather uneven if I were to rip it too. I measured how long I wanted it and cut the base of my skirt.
I cut a 10" section off. 8" for length and 2"for the waste band.

I then measured her waist and subtracted the length of the front panel on the soon to be skirt.
The front section is always a bit bigger than the back section.
Her waist measured 18" and the front of the skirt measured just under 9.5".
18"-9.5"=8.5"
That was the length I cut my elastic for the back of the skirt.
In hind sight I would probably shave off another 1" of the elastic as it doesn't hug her waist too well if she is wearing big girl panties (its not an issue with a diaper/pull-up, it fits perfectly).

I measured about 2" down from the top and pinned the elastic to the back panel on the outside of the material.
One pin on each side and one in the middle.
I sewed it to one side of the back, just up and down, then to the other side. Then I stretched it out and sewed straight across the top twice to secure it in place

I fold the top panel over to encase the elastic, leaving that beautiful fray exposed.
I sewed along the top as close as I could get to the edge and then again around the bottom about 1/4" up allowing my fray to happen over time.

I then took some scrap jersey I had lying around and cut a 2" wide strips of about 4' long.
I sewed a gather stitch at the top of the jersey and made the ruffles happen.

I ran my fingers across the bottom portion of my skirt pulling threads encouraging a good start to a fray.
I then pinned the ruffle to the inside of the bottom of my skirt with the pins on the outside. My machine is a few years old. I like the top portion of my stitches better than the bottom, so I made sure the nicer stitch would be on the outside. I sewed around it twice to secure it in place. One stitch only 1/4" above the other.

There you have it! A lot of words for something so simple.
I love it! No Hemming, all rough edges, and "the Jeans" see another day!

The top of the thigh naturally curves in a bit as it hits the knee making a perfect A-line shape when turned upside down!
Another UFO out of my closet.

Refashions Part 1

We spent the weekend decluttering 2/3rds of the house, we sorted our unwanteds for donation and craigslist/yardsale. With a clean house, and a more simplistic feel of things I felt inspired to create today, amazing how that is. I hurriedly cleaned a few more things to get a head of things, and got things set up for an afternoon of creating.

I have a box of UFOs (Un-Finished Objects) in my closet, much bigger than I like to admit. Everything in the box (and on top) has a specific destiny, I just need to finish them. I hope to work my way thru the entire box within the next few months while the soldier boy is away.

Today I tackled two projects, I just reached for what was on top. A skirt for each of the girls.

I started with My Flittering butterflies'. I was given this shirt but it never fit, and the color never really worked with my complexion. My oldest loved it. She asked if I/she could do something with it for her. A ten minute project!

I took the shirt and laid it out as straight as I could, then drew a line across the gathered bust area.

I sewed the layers in place, then cut the top off.

I then sewed on bias tape adding the elastic as I went (so much easier than trying to feed it in later. I simply just pin the start end in place and as a sew line everything up encasing the elastic perfectly). Done! I just had to wait for My filltering Butterfly to come home to make sure the elastic was tight enough and sewed the elastic together and closed the little inch gap. Sorry no pictures, the camera died.

She loves it!!

I might fix up the layers up front a bit more so they lay better simply by tacking them at the top, but for now its good enough for me, why be OCD about it.
I'll have to try for better picture of it. The girls were rather excited and I had some awesome dance music going in the background, they wouldn't stand still for more than a few seconds at a time, plus I was letting them dance on the table, when does a mom ever let you do that?!

This is my girls favorite music video these days. Who can stand still while listening to this?!

Children's Christmas video

My kids love kid history!! If you haven't seen it you must check them out on YouTube. My kids love these videos and can quote them word for word!

Christmas Printables

I am a bit embarrassed to admit, I have had picture frames up in the front entrance way for well over six months now waiting for pictures to be put in them. I just never got around to ordering the right pictures to fill them up. That has changed. The first thing you see as you walk into my house will no longer be six empty frames and two side ways pictures hanging on the wall!

(Sorry for the crappy pictures I keep forgetting to take pictures during the day)

I did not fill them with pictures, because ours are now outdated and I just refuse to hang the old ones, as cute as they are... I really need to get new family photos in the new year!!
But for the temporary fix this will do. I removed two of the frames which made a difference in the lay out. I love it! (I really need to start taking befor and after pictures.)

I found these printables here
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1. Jones Design Company love that I could add a few scriptural Christ centered ones to the wall
2. Polkadots on Parade
3. For the life of me I can't find the link. UGH! Really thought I bookmarked them all.
4. Betty Crocker Wannabe
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1. & 2. Love from home
I used the making a list and sleigh bells ones

Teachers Christmas gifts

This year I decided to let the kids help with teacher gifts. I tried to think of something they could make and be proud of yet something the teacher would like (coming from a 5, 6, and 10yr old).

After a bit of discussion they all picked something to add to the teacher bags.

They wanted my simple nativity, faux nog (since all their teachers and their aides loved it last year. My favorite is 1-2Tbsp Faux nog, 1/2 crushed ice and 1cp milk blended with the magic bullet. It is so frothy and delicious), flavored hot cocoa, and dipped pretzels, Oreos, and marshmallows in a mug.

Lil' Mr Emo mixing some faux nog

The kids loved dipping their pretzels, marshmallows and Oreos on a stick in chocolate and almond bark then decorating them with sprinkles! We had a few neighborhood kids that joined in on the fun

I am not sure if there is more sprinkles on the pretzels or my floor at the moment, but they make some good memories and a slight sugar high.

Every counter in my kitchen is a staging area for some part of tomorrow. This counter is being used to assemble goodie bags for a class party tomorrow. Best be off to bed so I can wake a bit earlier than normal to clean up after all this mess and get these things all packed up and ready to deliver tomorrow AM.

We seek after these things...

Our youths theme for this past year was

We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

At the end of every year several of the congregations in the area get together and celebrate all the things the girls have accomplished. Each congregation is given a table to display some of their girls accomplishments or to spotlight the girls.This year we put some of our humanitarian quilts and then we made a craft to display that went along with this years theme. I found this on a blog someone shared with me.
the girls personalized them. They turned out so cute!

(sorry just couldn't get these two photos to turn!)
I cut some vinyl and then printed some swirls clipart I found. We transferred the swirls by scribbling with a pencil all over the back of the page and then tracing them onto the wood. We colored them in with sharpies and then added the vinyl.
We adhered the pictures with spray adhesive (WAY EASIER THAN MOD PODGE!! and there were no bubbles.) then we applied to coats of Mod Podge.

Side note- have you seen this before? It's my new favorite thing!! SPRAY MOD PODGE (glossy, not a big fan of the matte) coupled with spray adhesive of course! Thinking of buying Wal-mart out and giving it to everyone I know for Christmas.

Butternut Squash soup

It has cold off something fierce here. I love fall/winter and the excuse to make yummy warm soups.

Last week we made Butternut squash soup. I love butternut squash! I was so excited this morning to find butternut squash in my bountiful basket. I had this post scheduled for Monday, but decided this was a wonderful excuse to rearrange posts and share now.

I found this recipe last year, I altered it a bit. Last week I made enough to freeze for three family meals and a half dozen lunch size portions. I'll scale the recipe down for I family size serving (5-6cps).

1 Butternut squash (the ones we got in our basket were a bit smaller than the ones I usually use, I used two big ones when I tripled the recipe)

2.5-3cps chicken broth (depends on how thick you like it, the thicker then better in my opinion)
1/3-1/2cup onions, chopped (or 1/3cps dehydrated onions reconstituted)

2cloves of garlic
2-3tsp curry powder ( I love curry so the more the better for me)
1tsp nutmeg
1tsp ginger
Sour cream or plain Greek yogurt to garnish

Cut squash lengthwise in half and remove the seeds
Bake squash at 400F until you can push a fork thru easily (about 60-75min)
Cool and Peel the baked squash. We found this works well with a simple pairing knife. We turned the squash flat side down and used my handy little pampered chef pairing knife.
Cut the squash into 2" chunks
Put everything into your a large pot and use your hand plunge blender thingy to blend it all together (or carefully use a blender. I never have any luck using a blender and hot items I always get burned).
Heat thru on the stove top and garnish to taste with sour cream or yogurt.

DELICIOUS!!

Christ centered Christmas

It is quite the topic this year-Christ centered Christmas!

I am not ready to "kill" Santa Claus for my kids, but I like the idea of educating them about the original St Nikolaus. I only have one Santa decoration and it reminds me of our days in Germany so I am not going to put it away.

I love to give. I love to give my kids gifts, but Christmas isn't about gifts. I need to be more focused on educating my kids on where gift giving started, and remind my kids it isn't about getting it is all about receiving. We have decided to let each kid pick a random act of kindness and spend the week befor Christmas serving others to better remind them its all about giving.

I own quite a few nativities (something I inherited from my mother). Every year we add another one to our collection. Some big, some breakable others are small or durable enough to survive being played with daily. Christ is well represented in out home around this season. They know the story of Jesus and have daily reminders of his humble beginning.

This year I have wanted to make this craft since I first saw it back in November sometime, but have yet the energy to focus on it. I had no really connection with the word JOY so I kind of put it off as a "if I have time" project. I think I will be making it this weekend with the kids!
Our youth group had an assignment to do a service project tonight that wouldn't take too long and I was looking for a lesson to teach the girls on the importance of service and let them know how proud I was of them for all they have done this past month in service. As I trolled the internet I came across this site and found a lesson on J.O.Y. (its the fifth little dot down). I loved it! I think the girls enjoyed it. And I am thinking I am talking to my kids about it come family night!
Here's the idea...
J is for Jesus. He had a purpose here on earth no one else could fill! He lived and died for us. I went into a little more detail then we watched this video clip



O is for others. It is a time for service and time to focus on others. There never is an easier time to find ways to serve. A time to give back. Give Christ the gift of service, find every possible way to do small random acts of kindness this holiday season. I spoke of how they more than willingly spend money on making holiday meals tonight for shut ins and elderly people in our congregation, how they made 90 quilts for a homeless shelter for Christmas, how they jump to serve every time I ask them to. It is that service that builds up and strengthens others, that makes a difference in the world, that is the Saviors work here on this earth.

Y is for you. "YOU?" you ask. Yes YOU! Not you as in what you want, not as in you time but You as in taking the time to reflect on your own testimony of the Savior. Recommit. Accept his message and build up your personal understanding of who Christ was/is and what his teachings are. Accept him into your life, not just when you are going thru a trial or are extremely overjoyed, but everyday in everything good or bad or just because.

After our lesson I had the girls cut out some of these to hang as a banner or as Christmas decorations to remind them of the true reason for the season. We cut out the balls and hung them with grosgrain ribbon.
I printed off these ones and hung them in my kitchen as my own personal reminder.
I may not have it all together but I am certainly going to focus more on educating and talking about Christ with my little ones this year. I am going to find every opportunity to serve others big or small. I am going to recommit myself to being a better disciple of Christ. I am going to find JOY this year as we celebrate the birth of our Savior.

My sisters visit

Been MIA but definitely not idle! Moving from one project to another befor finishing any of them up. Hopefully I will have more to report in the near future. I certainly have a Honey-help-me-do list a mile long!

My baby sister came to celebrate my birthday with me this year. She and her little man spent three fabulous weeks with us. As always I put her to work ;-) It's how we bond.

She sewed several quilts for me and my Young Woman's youth group. We are up to 66 of 80! WAHOO! Hope to complete the last 14 this week.
Thanks Baby Sis!

Side Note:
So bountiful baskets is pretty new in our area. I had to try them out. AWESOME! Look them up if you dont know what they are bountifulbaskets.org
While my lil sis was here I ordered 90Lbs of apples and 25Lbs of Tomatoes thru them. Once again I put her to work.

We made apple pie filling, apple sauce, apple butter, frozen apple crisp, apple chips, and salsa

This little gadget was my best friend!!

Having never made salsa befor and wanting it chunky was rather interesting. It took us two batches and we still didn't get it right. But add a little hot sauce and it is perfect for me, my kids like it as is. It is definitely better than anything bought at the store.

Because I over estimated on the number of onions we would need for salsa (yes 5-3Lb bags is too much LOL), my Little Sis found ways to use them up. As I cut and froze a few bags, she diced a few for some yummy french onion soup. Delicious!!

My lil ape baby got in on helping out.
Yup she is playing with a knife! Mother of the year award, right?!

And this lil man Hi-Tek warmed his way into each of our hearts.
The kids loved having a baby around! He is such a funny little guy!

Thanks Baby Sis! I love you!
Plan to do it again next year! I'll need it!

My sons fall party

I love Pinterest! Thank you whoever thought of and implemented this site! If you haven't heard of it, it is a great resource! I found this site there and had to make these for my sons grade school fall party.

Our school mascot is an owl.

How perfect for a school party that can't be too Halloween-ish.

I did find pulling the oreos apart and sticking them on the cupcake didn't look as cute as the ones on the website! I had to dip my handy little pampered chef pairing knife in water and scrape off the top layer of icing to get the whites to look cleaner.

Can you see the difference?
I also found double stuffed oreos work better or the cheap generic oroes as the icing is easier to manipulate.
These were super easy and fun for all.

Fall Festival

Today is the fall festival at school. Each class is having a fall party.
I was so eager to sign up for snacks and do something super fun, but by the time I spoke to the mom in charge of my oldests class party all she had left was drinks. I found this link for juice boxes and knew what I was going to do. When I talked to the teacher she suggested making a few for those who may not like/celebrate Halloween so I found this link and very poorly attempted to create something neutral.
Here are our final results.
I had the kids help create these treats. My little Emo boy wanted to do his mummy in black, I wasn't in the mood to fight. In the end we decided to turn him into a bat instead. I think it turned out rather cute.

Adjustments
I couldn't find white electrical tape so I used white duct tape. I snipped the first piece in half and started tearing which you can't see very well but it leaves little raw edges giving it a more torn material look.
Here's a pic of my tape roll
(I was able to do 20 with this roll and this is whats left could probably do another 10 easily)

The black mummy gone batty
We wrapped these boxes with black electrical tape then cut out some bat wings out of card stock, folded over a small piece of the wing to hot glued them on, followed by our googly eyes.I carefully pulled all the straws off, making sure the plastic didn't tare before we started, then we hot glued then all back on to finish up our project.

What a fun project! Sad we spent the better part of 2hrs wrapping , and gluing 40+boxes and they will only be enjoyed for a few minutes then trashed, but my kids loved helping and spending time working together (Ok so it wasn't all fun and games, they fought a little, but they talked fondly about their evening over breakfast).