Motorcycles and Tractors

This is what we look for whenever we are out driving. Alex loves seeing both of them. He has seen tractors without me even seeing them. And he routinely sees motorcycles that aren't even there, just because he wants to see a motorcycle so badly.

Today on the way to church we saw two motorcycles (lucky day!), but by Alex's count, we saw at least 5 or 6.

I'm really excited that he gets to go on a ride on PaDa's (grandpa's) tractor when we're in Utah. I'm sure he'll thing it is the greatest thing ever.

Oh, and on the PaDa note, I also have to mention that as of Saturday, Grandma is no longer Ma. She is MaNa. I have a feeling these nicknames will be around in our family for a while. Thanks to Alex, all of our kids with know Grandpa and Grandma by PaDa and MaNa.
What can I say, we have a funny and original little boy.

AH! My fabric turned pink!

When I washed all of my fabric yesterday, the red I washed bled onto the frog fabric I got. It was mostly dark and it was just the tummies of the frogs and some patterns in the background that were white. Funny thing was that there were other fabrics being washed in the same batch that had white on them, but they didn't absorb any of the red.

Luckily, I have experienced pink fabric before when Jon washed his red/white quilt that I made for him for Christmas before we got married.
So in case you ever have things that have turned pink, this is what you do.

Put hot water in the sink. Add any number of combination of laundry detergent, color safe bleach, oxy clean, and powdered dishwasher soap. I usually risk my hands and put them in the super hot water and wring and dip repeatedly. I've also used a spoon to stir it around while I wait for the water to cool a bit.
It takes a LOT of wringing and dipping, but it draws out a LOT of the red. You may have to change water several times. Put hot water and all of the detergents in each time you change the water and repeat the wringing and dipping.
You can also let it sit for a while. I let my fabric sit in hot water and detergents overnight and it did pretty well.

My fabric is now back to it's mostly white state. It may always have a slight tint of pink, but at least it's better than REALLY pink. And it may come out even more if I worked it more.

So there you have it. Hopefully you never have to worry about bleeding red fabric turning things pink, but if you do- try my method. I'm 2 for 2.

Me + big sale at Joann's = TROUBLE

I probably spent way too much $$$ today. BUT I got so much great stuff! Flannel prints were 40% off, so I got some flannel to make Alex an adorable soft rag quilt (and an extra to sale).
And then of course college prints for slings. I made my first one tonight and hope to get the other ones done this weekend.
Despite the large amount of money, I did get some good deals, a lot of cute stuff, and I did get an extra 10% off my total purchase, so yay for that!

I also got some stuff to make some wall hangings in my craft room, which I am excited for. When I get them up, I will probably take a picture so y'all can see the cuteness of my craft room. I'm still anxiously awaiting my floor mat though.

I think I'm going to go back to Joann's this weekend to get some fabric to make curtains for my bedroom. Home decor fabric is 50% off, plus another 10% off of that total. I really need to get the drapes done so that it looks better come sell time.


So if you weren't planning on doing so anyway, you should totally hit up the Joann's Labor day sale. I had a good time!

Thank you crafty room...

you have brought out my craftiness.
This is a good thing. Jon is especially happy.

After dinner tonight I told Jon I was going up to make something and actually made very good progress on one of my projects that's been waiting for quite some time.

I still have to figure out some stuff on it (It was a girl's size 14 dress that I am refashioning into a skirt), but I hope to have it done by Sunday. I just have to figure out the banded top and how to make the elastic work right. Oh ya and how to deal with the situation of needing about 3 inches of additional fabric in the back. It should all work out though!

WTF!? Ants?

that's what the freak.

Tonight I was sitting on the carpet minding my own business and I look down to see an ant (fire ant!) crawling on my pants! WTF!

Anyone who knows ants know that it's very rare to find just one ant casually wandering around in your house, so I was very nervous. I looked around, but couldn't see any other ants. Weird.

Fast forward to a couple of hours later. I go in to the bathroom and find an ant INSIDE my PANTS on my leg!!! WTF!

So now I'm really worried about having ants crawling around my living room floor where I and my child spend a good portion of our day. I'm also really worried about finding more ants inside my pants crawling on my bare skin, free to bite whenever and wherever they please. So since I'm worried about that, every little slight tickle or itch I subconsciencly think is an ant or some other bug. Which freaks me out. I'm really hoping I don't have a red ant invasion in my living room carpet again.

But I guess good timing since Jon can put out poison in the house without worry while Alex and I are on our vacation (we leave in a week!) Funny thing was the same thing happened last year- red ant invasion right before Alex and I left for a trip to Utah. Seriously, I don't know how the things get in my house. Ants drive me crazy.

BYE PEE PEE!!!!

How's that for a blog title?

We've been doing some casual potty training with Alex (remember this post?) since he was interested and willing. We've had some rough days, but we've had some good days too. I think ONCE after he pooped in the potty or when I put his poop in the potty (remember, cloth diapers) to show him where poop goes we said bye to the poop when we flushed.
Well, this is now one of Alex's favorite things to do when we go potty. Saying bye to the pee pee always consists of looking into the potty, waving bye, and yelling bye pee pee (or poopy) into the toilet. I should take a video of the whole thing to post (does that make me a blogging nerd?)

I guess it could be embarrassing, but I find it really funny. And I think that if I were in a public restroom and heard a 2 year old yelling bye to the pee pee as the toilet flushed I would be cracking up.

Today it reached a new level. Jon was flushing and Alex and I were on the other side of the house in the kitchen. As soon as Alex heard the toilet flushing, he was yelling out bye pee pee and running toward the bathroom to watch it go down.

So Utah family, prepare to have your pee pee said goodbye to!

Crafty Day

Oh how I love Amy. She called me up today to come over and sew. She's working on a quilt and felt much more motivated to work on it if I were there having a crafty day with her. The same story is usually true for me as well, so I am always glad to get together.
Amy made fabulous progress on her quilt that she is trying to get done before her baby arrives (due on the 20th of September, so time is limited!) and I made a sling and started on a second one. The one that I made is a University of Utah print on one side and black with white polka dots on the other. I ended up cutting it a little too short for me, so I'm hoping to find and XS sized person who is a Utah fan that I can sell it to.
I will probably make some more U of U slings like it when I go to Utah in a WEEK (!!!) so that I can have one in every size to put up for sale in my etsy shop. I would probably do some BYU and some UT ones too and also take custom orders for any college fabric. It's football season and mamas need to take their babes to the games- they may as well use it as a way to show their team spirit! And with having your hands free you can clap and cheer all you want. Awesome. I love collegiate print fabric.

Make a Treat!

Alex's favorite song is Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree. Are you surprised? The boy is only a popcorn fanatic. He does all of the actions really well. The only part he sings, and highly anticipates, is "treat". He yells it out with glee right when we get to that part. Like any sound minded child, he likes treats probably more than he likes popcorn. No worries, we're not loading our kid up with sugar. Treats over here are usually berries/fruits, fruit popsicles, and fruit snacks.
So popcorn and treats... hmm... sounds like someone else I know very well (ahem. myself). Jon can attest to my constant need for treats in the house. I just love having something sweet to snack on. Berries/fruits, popsicles, and fruit snacks have become as much of a treat for me as they are for Alex.

The latest fav treat around here is homemade ice cream. We bought a bag of Reeses Pieces and some hot fudge tonight to mix in to the batch we're going to mix up in about 15 minutes. I can't wait.
The Red Vines were right there by the Reeces Pieces, so I had to get those too. I'm looking forward to sitting down and watching the movie we rented with a big bowl of popcorn, then moving on to the red vines (guaranteed not to be snitched by my husband since he doesn't like them. I know, crazy!) and finishing off with some homemade ice cream. Sounds like a pretty good night to me!

I'm going to see if I have a video of Alex singing Popcorn Popping...

A BUG

While I was sewing, I woke Alex up since my craft room is right next to his bedroom. As seasoned parents of Alex, most of the time we can tell if he just needs a chance to go back to sleep or if going in and giving him in his binky and having him lay down is better. When we do go in, we try to go in before he has cried for too long so that he's still in sleep mode. When he cries for a long time it takes a lot more effort for him to go back to sleep as I know all too well from trying to get him to go back to sleep after a short nap.

Sleeping routines aside, Jon went in and found Alex sitting up in his bed, totally out of it and crying. Jon found his binky and Alex looked over at his pillow and saw a spot of dried blood on there (does anyone ever really know how dried blood gets on their pillow? I admit that it came from me when I was using it to elevate when I had a sinus infection, but I have no idea how the blood got there), pointed at it and said "bug, bug". He was very concerned that a bug was on his pillow. Quite the scary thing for a half asleep toddler!
Daddy saved the day and turned the pillow over and said there isn't a bug. It must have been the right thing, because Alex laid down and was out.

Not the funniest tale, but it certainly made us smile.

I should be more careful when I sew

Otherwise I end up with crooked lines.
I was working on THIS crayon roll today, which I started at Super Saturday but didn't finish. Well I was a bit wreckless on sewing my seams and my first pockets for the crayons ended up being taller than my end pockets. I do have to defend myself by saying that my machine was having a hard time sewing on the thick plastic-y interfacing I was using and I was really frustrated with the wacky and random tension that was going on (I had to sew over parts 3 and 4 times!), so I was just glad to be done with it.
I would use it for Alex, but it is pink. And I can't give it away. So I'm sure it will just sit in my closet for a few years until I have a little girl that needs it. I guess I could always donate it as well.

I'll think about starting on a new one when I stop thinking about how frustrated I was with this one. Maybe I'll pull out my quilt that I stalled on. Or I do have my whole list of of stuff to do over there ---> However, if I struggled with a crayon roll, how would anything else I try turn out? Hmm...

My happy note of the day- I ordered a floor protector mat for my craft room. I'm very excited to be able to roll around It will also make cleaning up all of the threads that come with sewing quite nice.

Must add beets!

This week I tried out Jessica Seinfield's chocolate beet cake from her Deceptively Delicious cookbook (thanks again Mom!). It wasn't bad, but it wasn't that great. Granted, I didn't make the cream cheese frosting for it, but my chocolate frosting was REALLY good. So good that I was eating spoonfuls of it.

Since I wasn't fully satisfied with my first cake, I bought a Duncan Hines Triple Chocolate cake mix and added about 3/4 cup of beets to it (I probably could have done a full cup) and it was so delicious and moist. And you couldn't taste the beets at all! It made me feel a little bit better about eating large slices of cake.

And now the details of the rest of the cake, because the other things I did made it even better. As Jon just told me, "it was almost an emotional experience it was that good."

I added some semi sweet chocolate chips to the leftover chocolate frosting I had (which made the REALLY good frosting even better!) and put that between my two 9" rounds. I frosted the whole thing with cream cheese frosting (from a can) and sprinkled more chocolate chips on top.

It was really good. I don't usually like chocolate cake, but this cake won me over. The cream cheese frosting really balanced out the chocolate. It was splendid with a nice big glass of milk. Nothing inspires me to drink a full glass or 2 of milk more than a rich yummy treat.

So there you have it, add beets to your cake mixes and enjoy extra moistness and a little extra healthiness that you wouldn't have otherwise had.

Should have sanded...

My newly painted desk and pegboard are up in my crafty room, so today I organized my fabric and hung my tools on my pegboard. While doing so, I scraped a nice chunk of paint off of an inside part of the desk and the pegboard received various little scratches as well. Lesson learned. Sand before painting. Period.
At this point I don't care enough to undo/redo what I have done, but I will definitely remember it for next time. Sand anything that has a remotely smooth surface.

This week I am going to work on getting thing decorated and cute. I'm accenting the aqua with black and white and galvanized metal. I may throw some pink in there as well. We'll see what I can find.

And since I was taking pictures...

Alex wanted his picture taken too. Isn't he just the cutest?

What I've been working on

Yesterday was a good day for me. I got my pantry containers labeled and they are adorable. Can pantry containers be adorable? YES.

I love them all lined up together!

I also got my desk painted last night! This is my sewing desk. I got it off of craig's list for $10. I absolutely love it in it's new color. I also painted my peg board the same color. I'm excited to get these back up in the room and up!

Tons of new craft links to the side --->

I found a new blog. www.blog.craftzine.com. I love it so much. I guess I should start being more crafty with all the links that are collecting over there.

Currently my desk and peg board are waiting to be painted. Oh ya and my cheappy bookshelf (which needs to be moved first) needs to be painted/revamped as well. Then my fabric needs to be organized by color. THEN I can set to work on the crafting! I feel like a loser for having all of the stuff listed, but not ever doing it.

I think I just need a cute studio to work in, like this one that I found today. I would LOVE to have a combo office/laundry room. I think my favorite thing in Paula's space is that the closest next to the door was turned into a computer work station. What a great use of space.

I think that getting my bright punches of color into my little craft space will help me want to be there and work on stuff, so hopefully I'll actually do that this week! Once I have the base done, crafting for that room can begin! (scrapbook paper on canvas prints, window treatment, cute pillows, magnets, peg board attachments...) This all seems like a lot to put into a room that we won't have forever, but I think it will help with selling the house if the space looks as good as it can.

On another organizing note, I now have 7 plastic containers housing my foods that come in bags (rice, beans, powdered sugar, brown sugar, macaroni/pasta, wheat flour) in my pantry. They are fabulous! They take up so much less space than the bags and make things MUCH easier to see. I also love how the look all lined up. Now to label them... good thing I am going to Hobby Lobby tomorrow! I'm thinking letter stickers or rub on letters. FUN!

Holy Crap!

Now if that doesn't make you want to visit this beach in St. Marteen I don't know what would.

Here's a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oB4rcr7gT0&feature=related


thanks Jon for finding me such great links!

Loaves and Fishes

I have successfully turned 1 gallon of milk into 3 quite tasty gallons of milk. And I have to say that I am quite impressed with myself.

Last week I mixed a little less than a third of a gallon of 1% milk with about a 1/2 gallon of dry powdered milk from my food storage. It was okay, but not wonderful. So I started thinking about how to possibly make it better.
My sister in law, Melanie suggested mixing 1/2 and half, but when I thought about it that would only save me about 50 cents per gallon in the long run. So I thought about it and was going to do 2% mixed in half or thirds since 50 cents per gallon is at least some savings.

When I got to the store, I discovered that whole milk is the same price as 1 and 2% milk, so I made the decision to get a gallon of that and divide it into thirds. I just had a glass with my granola bar and it tastes fabulous despite it being two-thirds powdered milk. And since I already had powdered milk, I essentially got 3 gallons of milk for $3.88. Not too bad.

I may have to freeze one of those gallons so that it doesn't go bad, but that's okay. Eventually I'd like to make 4 gallons out of 1 gallon of whole milk so that my cost is reduced even more. I would do just straight powder, but I like a little bit of fat in my milk, so doing the whole milk mix is an excellent alternative.


So I'm popping back in to say that Jon does NOT like this milk. He said it tastes like watered down milk. I'm sure he'll be fine with it in his cereal though. That's really where most of our milk goes. However, I drank a huge glass of it and didn't think it tasted that bad. Maybe not quite 1%, but defintely not as watered down as Jon was stating it was. Bottom line, we'll probably stick with it and Jon can either get used to it or not drink glasses of milk. :)

The noodles are talking to me

They're on Alex's fingers and saying, "Hi Mama" over and over again. And I have to talk back to them and say "Hi Baby".
Alex loves to have things "tahk" (talk). Today it's the noodles and sauce he's having for lunch.
I'm sure later today he will bring me his froggie, monkey, and sheep-baa and demand "tahk".
And when I change his diaper, he will insist that I put my hand in it like a puppet and make it "tahk".

On another funny note today, I woke up to quite the funny sight this morning. Now, I am not a morning person. It takes me some time to wake up and be ready to get out of bed. When I take my time to wake up, I am a happier person and feel more able to handle my day. Anyway, while I am slowly waking Alex wanders our room. Most of his time is spent digging through our top nightstand drawer taking the lids off of cologne and such.
We brush his teeth laying down on our bed at night, so his toothbrush and toothpaste are on top of our nightstand.

Usually I catch him before he gets the toothpaste (he can open it) to tell him no and take it away, but this morning I opened my eyes and saw Alex with the toothpaste open and in his mouth, tilting his head back and squeezing the tube for a nice "drink". I don't think he got much actually in his mouth and he was very distraught (as usual) when I took it away. It was just a funny thing to see a little boy so eager to gulp down toothpaste.

*note* it's baby toothpaste, so no flouride. Alex thinks the stuff is just a fun treat. It's also quite expensive, so there can't be any gulping down of Alex's toothpaste!

A day outside

Alex and I are sitting outside. And it's only 80ish degrees out here. In fact, I think it's cooler outside than it is inside (we've had our windows open and AC off all day today). What makes me even happier is that we're supposed to have cooler weather like this until Wednesday. After being in a heat wave and no rain, cool weather is one of the greatest things ever.
I think we may have to eat our dinner out here.
So I sit out on my laptop and Alex plays on his slide, in the dirt from my dead potted plant, with his car, and pretends to water the trees. He's currently sitting in a patio chair saying "Daddy's home" over and over (Jon just walked in the door). I'm sure we'll be hearing the same phrase until the little guy goes to bed as he's always so happy when Daddy's home.

Sea World- firsts for Alex

Our wonderful friends decided to invite us to come to IBM's co. day at Sea World with them (so nice!), so yesterday we made a trip down there for a day of fun.

I know that I've already blogged about how great Sea World is, but we learned some new things and Alex tried some fun new things. And it was the most exciting thing that happened all weekend, so what else am I supposed to write about?

We learned that getting there at 1:30 is kind of a pain. Cars were backed up and we waited to get in the parking lot for about 10-15 minutes. Now, this could happen constantly on Saturdays or it could just be that we went at the wrong time. Who knows.

We also learned to hit the water park first. We went in and only had to wait about 5-10 minutes in line (the whole capacity thing... there can only be so many people in the water park. I had to explain this wait to the nice woman with gold teeth behind me who kept saying, "come on! What's the hold up?")
When we left the water park at about 4, the line was SUPER long, so we were really glad we weren't trying to get in at that point.

THE WAVE POOL

The first place we went in the water park was the wave pool. Last time we went, we were there at about 3:30 and after about 2 times around the Lazy River, Alex was so tired that we went home. So this was our fist time in the wave pool. It was awesome! Alex loved having Jon hold him and have the waves "crash" into them and splash in his face. He'd watch the wave coming at him, hit the people in front of him and would yell out "ear ih comes!" (here it comes) as loud as he could. He laughed a lot and thought it was great fun!

SPLASH ATTACK

Then we headed over to Slash Attack, which had 3 flights of stairs creating 2 different levels of platforms where people would fill up TONS of buckets and dump them. I think there were also large squirt guns. There was a lot of water flying everywhere!
Alex loved the the teeter totters they had. When you go up it sprays a stream of water into the face of the person on the opposite side and then you get sprayed when you go down.

This next picture obviously isn't us (but I DO wish I looked that good in a bikini!), but it shows the area and how much water is going on. Oh and the teeter totters (directly to the left of the guy). I just realized there are a lot of black swimming suits going on in this picture.




Alex had a hard time getting off the teeter totter and giving someone else a turn. So there's a question... if there is a constant flow of kids who are waiting for a turn on the teeter totter and your kid could play on it all day, how long should you let your kids stay on it?

After swimming, we went over to get some food from the "special place" (thanks IBM!). It was nice to be able to eat something without either 1- having to pay a lot, wait a long time, and sit in one of their crowded resturants or 2-go out to our car for a good meal or drive out to McDonald's and then drive back in.

After eating we experienced more of Happy Harbor, which Alex was a big fan of. He LOVED the soft house! I'll have to post a picture of it later, but it's kind of like a bounce house and it had large foam shapes in it that we would build into towers and Alex would "tah toe!" (tackle) them. He also loved climbing up on the step and jumping down into the soft house. I think we're going to have to go to one of those blow up places...

Alex also went on his first ever ride!!! We went on the spinning paint cans and Alex loved it. Spinning should have been his favorite part right? Nope. He was thrilled with the wheel in the middle (to spin our car). We could have been sitting still and he still would have loved that ride.

We ended the day with dolphins and sharks. After not having a nap all day (and actually doing better than I thought he would without a nap), he fell asleep on the way home.

And since we have a lovely minivan, I climbed into the very back seat and turned on the overhead light and got to read my book for about an hour or so uninterupted. I wouldn't have been able to do that in the car because the lights would have been too distracting for Jon to drive. Bless the mini van!