A Great Gift For Mom

Wow. I wish I had seen these when I had babies. I guess I still do, but my youngest is now 3! I am still putting these on my wish-list for Santa.

These great Mothers Bracelets would make an awesome shower gift, new baby gift (Dad's, YES! You are expected to get the mother of your child something), or even a great Christmas Gift for those more experienced mom's (hint hint). But, don't forget Grandma either. She would love to show off all her little angel's with one of these great bracelets.

I personally love this Two-Toned bracelet with 2 names. I would need two of these, but I am sure Santa won't mind when he sees how reasonable the prices are.

Head on over to Nanny Deprived and order your today. I think there are only about 50 days left till Christmas.

My Latest Product Line

So, I seem to only have stuff to say about once a month. Not really, if you ask my husband or kids (or parents or friends or parents of kids friends or the girl scout parents, ok. you get the picture), I talk ALL the TIME! But just look at how infrequent my blog post are. Then all of a sudden , BAM! 2 or 3 in a 2 day period. I understand I am very scatter brained so I just write all my idea's on little pieces of notebook paper so that I can blog about them later that night. Problem is, I ALWAYS seem to loose those little pieces of paper. Hence, all the blogging gets done at one time because that is when I remember all the things I was wanting to do.

Back to my original reason for posting this blog (see, I really am scatter brained.)

I am launching a new line of children's Aprons. They come in 3 sizes, Small (size 3-4), Medium, shown in pictures, (size 5-6) and Large (size 7-8). The strap is one piece and is threaded through the arms allowing it to be adjustable and grow with the child. I would love to make an adult line to match if the demand is there. These will make super cute gifts for birthdays or the holiday's coming up.

Are these not the best pictures. Rachel Williamson from Mammagoose Photography did these for me. Thank you Rachel and her beautiful little girl. Rachel has loved photography for as long as I have known her (which is over 20 years. Wow, I feel old now.) She does any type of photography you need from family portraits to wedding to children's. Please head on over to her Blog and check out her latest works. http://www.mammagoosephotography.blogspot.com/. Once you are done there, all you local people, head on over to her website http://www.mammagoosephotography.ifp3.com/ and get your pictures scheduled. She will definitely give you a timeless treasure for your family to enjoy.

Weekend Fun

If you are like me, You are always trying to come up with something to do during the weekend.

Ok, now back to reality. Between cleaning up after my 4 kids and my loving husband, IF I find free time, here is what I will be doing this weekend.

Frozen Cookie Dough Rolls from Design Dazzle

No Sew Flutter Cape From Ruffles & Stuff

Make my own Wooden Block toys from matsutake

Please, if you get this done, send me your pics. Can't wait to see what all my talented readers do with their weekend.

Trick Or Treat Bag Tutorial

I made these adorable Trick-or-Treat bags for my kids. These were so easy, I decided to make a tutorial so you could make them for your kids too.

(Oh yah, no commenting on the extremely neat sewing table in the background)

Please keep in mind this is my first tutorial so lets all hope I remember everything. Please read through the entire post and take a look at the pics before starting on this project, just to make sure it all makes since to you.

What you will need

2 different fabrics at least 1/2 yard each.

Cut each fabric into 2 13.5"x14" squares. You will end up with 4 squares total.

And a strap made out of your remaining fabric. (I forgot to take a picture of the fabric cut out before I started sewing so just pretend this has all 4 squares and the strap).

The length and width of your strap will depend on how much fabric you have left over. Mine was 26" Long and 6" wide (before folding). To make your strap take your fabric and fold in half lengthwise and iron to make a crease. Now, fold your raw edges towards the middle(crease) and iron down again. This should leave you with a piece of material 26" long and only 1.5" wide. Sew close to the edge down both sides of your strap (lengthwise). This will close your strap and leave you with 2 visible sew lines. (Personal preference on that. I like to have the contrasting thread showing on my straps.)

So sorry about the strap instructions. I will do better next time.

Okay, now to the bag.

I am using Star fabric and Skeleton Fabric. Remember, 2 squares each fabric design.

Take your first fabric (mine was stars) and pin them right sides together. I only pinned 3 sides together and left the top un-pinned so I would know where NOT to sew. I chose to have the 14" on the top and bottom and the 13.5" as the sides. You can make this either way, depending on how tall or how wide you would like your bag.

Sew 3 sides together using 1/5" seam allowance. Leave top open.

Do this for both fabrics. Now you should have 2 'bags' made. One will be your lining the other will be your outer shell.

Next you are going to take one bag and open it up so that the seam from the bottom and the seam from the side are lined up together forming this triangle. Mark at least 1.5" from the point of the triangle with a fabric pen. Remember, your bag is still inside out at this point.

Now you will sew along the mark you just made on each corner of the bag. Once your line is sewn, you will cut of the top of your triangle. This will give you those 'mitered' corners and allow the bottom of the bag to open up wider and sit a little flatter.

This is what the bottom of your bag (lining and outer shell each) will look like after you have finished your corners.


Next you will take your inner lining and turn it right side out. (My lining is my star fabric). Leave the outer bag inside out for right now.
I find it easier at this step to pin your straps in place. To do this, open up your outer shell (remember it is still turned inside out -fabric on the inside of the bag- at this point.) Then just drop your strap in, making sure it is not twisted, lay it out along the sides of the bag. I just kinda eyeball the middle of the bag on either side and pin in place.

Now you will lay your lining inside your shell. It should layer like this: Inner lining (fabric on outside of bag), Strap, Outer lining (fabric on inside of bag). You fabrics will be facing each other with the strap in the middle.

Sew the lining and outer shell together using a 1/4" seam allowance. Remember to leave a small opening in the bag so that you can turn it right side out. (My photo shows a pair of scissors in the opening that I left in the bag. )

Now, turn bag right side out thru that opening you just left yourself. Your bag should look like this at this point. I know it looks funny, but this is what it should be.

As you can see, your lining and shell are sewn together with your strap in the middle.

You take your lining and just push it into your shell.

To close this hole,

you will need to topstich around the entire top of the bag.

And then you end up with

I hope that was easy to understand.

The "C" on the front of the bag was just sewn on using a straight stich before I sewed the two pieces togeather. I have 4 little ones, so I added the initial to make sure they don't fight over whose bag is whose.

Thank you.

Getting Ready For Bed

My wonderfully cute 3 year old little boy has been potty training for a while now. He is the youngest of 4, so I really thought this would have been the easiest. He is so strong willed and hard headed (He takes after his dad) that this task has lasted about 7 months of on-and-off trying. Well, we are officially on day 2 of no diapers. YEAH!!!

Tonight, as I was getting the kids ready for bed, Charlie came to me crying about his "wear" being broke. (His "wear" is his underwear). I am currently sitting in my office finishing a project so I really did not want to take the time to figure out what he was talking about so I just sent him back to bed. A few minutes later he is still in there crying so I went back in and asked him why he thought his "wear" was broke. ( I was really just curious). Guess what he told me????

"Look mommy, it has a hole (imagine big-boy undies). It broke. You fix it?" After I finished laughing, I told him yes and he made me sew the opening closed. When I put them back on him, he just laughed and laughed about how mommy fixed his "wear".

Happy Labor Day

We had such a great day today. The fam and I went to the 75th Annual Sacred Heart Labor Day Festival. The kids got to play games and play on the bouncy slides while Robbie and I worked the Fast Pitch Booth. After 5 hours we came home with several little stuffed animal key chains, 3 slap bracelets, 2 high bounce balls, and 1 arm tattoo that looks like stitches.

Tried to make a Turkey for dinner today. (I know, you are supposed to grill out, but we had grilly-out type food at the festival). Put the bird in the oven at 4:00 thinking it should only take about 1 1/2 hours to cook. Well, I had a 9lb turkey that was not done by Dinner time. (I am usually a better cook than that.) So, Dominoes to the rescue. The kids were ecstatic as we NEVER eat out.

On a more serious note. My Grandfather passed away on August 25th of this year. He was a great man who served 28 years in the US Army and was married for over 50 years. He had two children, 4 grandchildren, and at the time of his passing, he has 6 great-grandchildren. While I was in Iowa for the funeral, I was privileged enough to meet his sisters and some of their children. Most of these people I had never met before. I dare to say we now all have a bond that hopefully we will always have and we will always stay in touch.

This afternoon I was so saddened to hear that my Grandfather's Nephew and his wife, Mike and Cathy, lost a daughter. My heart goes out to the Moon family and we will continue to send our love and prayers.

Apple Picking

We had a great Saturday.

Mom's Version:
First, we drove about 2 hours to get to this orchard that my mother had seen in a magazine. We got there only to find out that the "Apple Season" started in early August for our area. Remember, just said I drove 2 hours to get to this place so my 4 children were getting apples.
Okay, so we start down these rows of apple trees and there are NO apples on the trees. We had to go all the way to the end of the rows to get apples. Then it smelled like old apple cider and the apples were kinda small. The kids picked over 20lbs of apples. (What am I to do with that many apples?) Went to Cracker Barrel for lunch then back to my mother's house. Had BBQ Ribs and fried apples for dinner.

Kids Version:
Preston-"Why are we leaving the house so early?" Kennedy-"We been in the car FOREVER!"
Abby/Kennedy-"I'm Hungry" Charlie-"mmmmm, vrmmm, cow!!! tactor!!!!" Kennedy-"Let go of my Bag!" Charlie-"My Bag, My bapples!"
overheard...
"My apple is better than yours", "Your apples are stupid", "don't pick the ones with worms"

Kids had a blast once we got there. They ran from tree to tree picking apples. Small apples, medium apples, bad apples. (Parents running after kids) Each kids had their own bag (don't want to have to share) so I am not even sure what type of apples we have. They ate so many apples while we were in the orchard and then on the way home all of them were complaining of tummy aches.

You know it was a good day when the kids go to bed exhausted and bellies full.

Thoughtfull Thursday

This morning I realized what my two youngest children were going to be when they grow up. Now, I have four children so I have learned (or at least like to think I have learned) to take things in stride and not put to much stock into what they are doing at any given moment as it, and there interest, may change rapidly.

Anyway, back to this morning. Or maybe it was around 2:00 AM. I am laying in my bed. You know, the king size bed you and your hubby used to share but all of a sudden the children believe with everything they have that this bed is now Their bed. Yah, that one. So anyway, I am laying in bed and my 3 year-old precious, beautiful little boy, started tapping on my shoulder trying to get me awake. Now, any "good" parent would very happily just smile at said precious, beautiful little boy and kindly take said precious, beautiful little boy back to his bed and sit with said little boy till he fell back asleep. NOT ME!!! I just picked him up and kinda threw him in the middle of my husband and I and went back to sleep.

2:30 AM. I am back asleep (In my king size bed with me, my husband, and my youngest son) and my 4 year old precious, beautiful little girl starts tapping on my shoulder. This time I try to ignore the tapping hoping she will go tap her father. That didn't work. So, what do you think I did? Yup, just kinda threw her in the middle of the bed also.

How do I know what my children will be based on just nighttime behavior you ask. Well, it is quite simple. They are going to be surgeons. I truly believe only surgeons are able to find your kidney and spleen, with their feet, while sleeping.

So, I want to know, What are your kids going to be when they grow up?