Looks like I have some massive amounts of mermaid fin sewing to do!

I made a fin today. It sold a few hours later. Time to kick into sweat shop mode. Thank goodness for a TV and toys in my craft room!
I'm glad for all of the fabric I have, but it will be nice to be done with the mermaids when it's all gone! Hooray for having an adorable product to sell!

p.s. I did a fun little photoshoot with some adorable twin girls today. Here they are showing off their mermaid fins! Thanks Mindy for being so awesome! Cookies are coming your way this week when I break out of the sweat shop.

Mermaid tail and top in my Etsy store!

Head over there and check it out. It looks much better than the pic I posted on here the other day!

Now... off to sew some more of them!

No Thank you

Raising a polite child has to start early, so I make it a point to always use please and thank you and no thank you as much as possible. It works out rather well that I have a little parrot on my hands and will repeat (and thus learn) the things that I'm saying.
Lately we've been working with him on saying no thank you instead of just NO. In the past day or two, he's actually started to say it more on his own!

Tonight, Jon couldn't find Alex's binky for bed time so he just put him to bed without it. I was told that this resulted in many tears. I came home about 30 minutes after the tearful bedtime and after a quick trip upstairs, Alex apparently was not asleep and started crying again. So I went in and he was pretty hysterical.

Jon had apparently tried to put the beloved shee baa baa (sheep) into bed with Alex to serve as a replacement for the binky. I made a comment on having the sheep to Alex and he picked the sheep up and in a very tearful, gaspy, cry voice told me, "no (insert cry noises here) tane (and here) k (and here) ooo"

It was oh so cute, funny, and heartbreaking all at the same time.

Politics: The Post Turtle

I'm prefacing political posts with the above prefix. This way if discussing or politics upsets you, feel free to peruse to another post on the blog. However, even if you don't agree with my stance I encourage you to read and examine what I write on with an open mind

As the current president (Texas native) and one of the two major party candidates enjoys giving folksy stories when explaining policy issues and current events, I thought this adage was appropriate in light of the pending debate on Thursday.

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old Texas rancher whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Sarah Palin and her bid to be a heartbeat away from being President. The old rancher said, "Well, ya know, Palin is a post turtle."

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a post turtle was. The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle."

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain. "You know she didn't get up there by herself, she doesn't belong up there, she doesn't know what to do while she is up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb idiot put her up there to begin with."

I could have possibly supported McCain even though I leaned Obama before his selection of Sarah Palin. I don't have enough negative words to express my feelings about how terrible of a candidate she is.

Trainwreck.

Nightmare.

Disaster.

Every interview she gives (two total, three if you count Sean Hannity lobbing softballs for 20 minutes) exposes how insanely unqualified this individual is to lead the United States of America. If you have not watched either interview with Katie Couric, please take the eleven minutes to do so.




I can understand that people may question Obama on the grounds that he lacks experience to serve as president of our country. I share some of those reservations.

However, watching Obama give an interview is like night and day compared to Palin. It is obvious that she had never spent a day thinking about national issues before she was chosen as McCain's running mate and it shows.

Some examples: she cannot speak with any substance about relevant domestic and foreign issues. She continues to cite her states' proximity to Russia as a foreign policy qualification. The lunacy of this logic is hopefully apparent to anyone reading. I can see the moon from my house, does that make me an astronaut?

Contrast the above interview with Obama's recent interview with Bill O'Reilly, distinguished humble correspondent for Fox News and note any gaps in his knowledge and understanding of domestic and foreign issues.









It is rather obvious from the interview that Obama has spent a great deal of time thinking about a range of issues that are relevant to our nation. You may not agree with him on many of them, but I believe it worthy to note his intelligence and understanding of what is going on in the world. This was also apparent in the first debate with McCain on Friday.

The last point that I would like to make is that John McCain is the oldest man to run for a first term as President. He is a four-time Melanoma survivor. His last surgery for it was in 2000:

McCain endured 5½ hours of surgery to remove a patch of skin including the blemish, roughly 5 cm (2 in.) wide. The diagnosis: Stage 2A melanoma, an invasive form of skin cancer that claims the lives of up to 34% of those diagnosed within 10 years.[1]

He has not and probably will not release his complete medical records before November 4th.

If McCain is elected the 44th President of the United States, Sarah Palin will be one tick of his heart away from becoming the 45th President of the United States.

Even if I agreed with her on every issue, the prospect of having Sarah Palin in the highest office is unacceptable. I will not vote for a McCain/Palin ticket.

Tune in next time for why a McCain/Romney ticket may* have enticed me.

*Even though he's a Mormon (j/k)

See that cute chandlier down there to the right?

That's a link to my new etsy store!
It's not full of stuff yet, but it will get there eventually. Especially if that stuff that is there sticks around for long.

Want a preview of what's coming up? Well good, cause I'm so dang excited to show it off!

Waa Laa!!! Mer-Baby!
If you live near me and know of a new baby (0-3 months) that just may want to try this on and possibly take some pictures in it, please let me know! I need to do this ASAP so that it can get up in my store ASAP. Halloween is only right around the corner and I could end up making quite a few of these...

I'll also be making bigger sizes to fit toddlers and little girls.
(If you already know you want one, let me know ASAP so I can pull out some fabric for you. I only have so much fabric!)

I'm pretty sure I'll be making mermaid tails all month. Hopefully I can use up my 4 yards of fabric quickly and be able to move on to aprons. I have some adorable fabric set aside for aprons! Not to mention the nearly done one for my awesome friend Amy and one already ordered by my friend Jen. Apparently, aprons are a hot item. I even have male friends requesting them! ;) Hi Jay!

I'll let y'all know when I get new stuff up. There are a LOT of things over there on my stuff to make list. I am sure at least some of them will be put into my store. I'm really excited!

Oh and I have to brag about my little logo because I totally made it. Hooray for having a knowledge of where to look for cool chandeliers (thank you Duncan Lighting!). And hooray for Photoshop.

I'd better go to bed. I was just way too excited about my little store not to share it right away!

A downside of having kids

I've had to beat (not really) Alex off of my purse NUMEROUS times today. Well in a moment when I wasn't around, he got into my purse and pulled out my hot new sunglasses (see Six Flags pictures) and FREAKING BROKE them.
This is the second pair he has broken. In less than 6 months. And he always breaks them within about 3 weeks of buying them. WHY???!!!!

Now, some may say, "what's the big deal? Just go find some new ones." That's a little bit hard for me because it's SO difficult for me to find a pair that looks good on me. Jon can attest to this. I loved this pair WAY more than the last 2 pairs that I had.

So go back to the store I got them from. Umm... Aldo in Utah? Ya... I'm in Texas. AND they were on sale (possibly clearance), so there is no guaranteeing that they would have them.

Glue them you say? I tried super glue on my last pair to no avail. Gorilla glue? Well the break happens to be on the frame around the lens. Imagine and big ol' glob of hard glue filled with tiny bubbles there since the stuff expands. NOT HOT.

Argh. I'm so bugged.

The Office!!!

This is our favorite show. We get the new season for Christmas every year. We faithfully watch every week. We frequently find ourselves saying, "that's what she said".
You can imagine how thrilled I was when I went to Target today and saw The Office merchandise in their DOLLAR bins!!!

Here's a fansite that shows pictures of the many things available.
http://www.officetally.com/office-goodies-in-the-target-1-bins

My Target did not have some of the stuff I wanted (uhh... World's Best Boss mug), so I think I'm going to visit another Target tomorrow.

How lovely that my find coordinated with premiere night!

Six Flags!

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I love roller coasters. I just never get sick of them. I tell Jon all of the time (or maybe I just tell myself) that we should have gone to Six Flags for our honeymoon. At least 2 days of it. Even better would be Six Flags AND Busch Gardens!!! I was lucky enough in my teenage years to have my family take me on such a vacation where we got to go to BOTH roller coaster super parks. I think I may actually consider that trip one of the highlights of my life so far.

That's how much I love roller coasters.

Imagine how THRILLED I was when Jon's company, National Instruments announced that they were holding the company picnic at Six Flags (down in San Antonio) this year! And, if that weren't sweet enough, they reserved the whole freaking park just for NI!!! This meant no fighting with the crowds of the general public and season pass holders and SHORT SHORT lines!!! AH! I'm excited just thinking about how awesome it was!

It was not a blazing hot day, we got free drinks all day in free souvenir cups, a free lunch, and a FREE TICKET to come back again before the 12th of October!!! SWEET! And it cost $15 + gas. Also, I didn't have tons of kids to take on rides and Alex didn't demand to be on a ride every second, so with the short lines I was able to go on all of the roller coasters and still ride some rides with Alex.

So with all of the greatness of the day going on, it's no surprise why I'm still feeling a high from it. It was an AWESOME day. Thanks NI!

Jon still had (and has) his vertigo going on, so he didn't go on any rides with me. He did go on the carousel with Alex and I and he said that was a bit much for him. I was surprised when he wanted to go on the teacups with Alex. After he got off of that, he was pretty dizzy.

My favorite rides were

The Poltergeist



The Twister




I'm embedding both of those for their uniqueness. I was cracking up on The Twister the whole time. I was one of 5 total people riding and it was so funny being spun that way.

Poltergeist was awesome because instead of going up a hill, it blasts you off. Totally took me off guard (even after 3 times). I also loved how strong the g-forces got. It hugged me right to my seat!
There was no line on this one, so I just stayed in my seat and went on it 3 times since Jon was waiting in a long line to ride on the little cars with Alex.

I also really liked Goliath and Superman. Both were bigger roller coasters and were SUPER smooth.

And speaking of smooth, I found a ride to AVOID like the plague! It's called The Rattler and it's a HUGE wood roller coaster. Problem is that it is NOT SMOOTH. It was so rough that I was being slammed (seriously. There is no better word to describe it) around in my seat. I have a huge bruise on my arm because of it and about 1/2 way through I started experiencing pain in my back. I thought it was really cool that it was such a big roller coaster, but after it got going I was really wishing it was a short ride.

Here's a video of it to illustrate how horrible it was. People can't even scream because it is so bumpy and they are just trying to deal with all of the bumps (and pain!). HORRIBLE RIDE!!!




Alex had such a fun time going on all of the rides. He loved everything, but it didn't surprise us that his favorite was the little trucks. That boy was so happy on the trucks! He also rode his first roller coaster, which made him a little nervous and he wanted to get off early. It was a similar story for the little swings we went on.
I was thinking how great it would be to go childless with our free ticket, but I loved how much fun he had on the rides and would love to see him that happy again.

Here's a little slideshow of our fun day!

Mustard and Mayonnaise

These are some of Alex's favorite "foods".
Alex happens to be addicted to hot dogs (no worries, we get the light turkey/pork no byproducts kind) and he doesn't really care for ketchup to dip them in. He's all about the mustard and mayonnaise. What a weirdo.

Vertigo

I totally forgot to blog about this! Sorry Jon... you really are important!

Jon came home from work early on Tuesday feeling really dizzy. He said he all of the sudden felt like the world was spinning and he was thinking it was just something going on with his head. So he shook his head and he said that made it a LOT worse. Driving home was an adventure for him.

The next day he still wasn't feeling great and he noticed something going on in his leg. He was thinking maybe a blood clot and that was causing him to feel lightheaded. We're a little paranoid of blood clots, so after talking to the dr., Jon went in to the ER. He figured he'd better get things figured out since he was going to be driving down to San Antonio to pick me up from the airport that night.

They did a blood test and no clot. They figured it was just a muscle strain and the dizziness was coming from Vertigo.

So Jon got some prescription strength motion sickness pills and some xanax for anxiety caused by feeling dizzy (I think... not exactly sure why the xanax...). We have no idea if this will last for days or weeks or more. Hopefully no longer than a week or so!

Until then we'll be taking it easy around here (moving his head a lot can bring on or worsen an attack of dizziness) and I'll be doing a bit more driving.

Here are some pictures from the day

Alex has a new love of pockets. I'll randomly catch him sticking his hand in his pocket and walking around like that. It makes him look oh so cool...





This is the adorable apron I made for my friend Janel! I should get this out to you tomorrow Janel!



reversible!




And we went to see our friends Kenn and Amy's new baby, Beckett. All 10 lbs. 14 oz. of him! Look at those rolls and chub! He's 1 day old people! They are in a hospital that opened just a few months ago, but he holds the record for weight so far. Go Beckett! He's absolutely adorable and I think I may have to spend even more time over at Kenn and Amy's holding him. It's quite unfortunate that Alex gets upset anytime I hold any child other than him.





Caleb and Alex hanging out in the hospital room. Can you tell what roll Alex plays in the friendship? He's the watcher/follower.




Caleb hadn't seen his mom in 2 days and was in a little hospital room at 8 at night, so he was a little hopped up...

Random Alex Stories

Jon was amazed yesterday with how much more Alex is talking just in the 2 weeks that we were gone. He says random things all of the time and surprises me. I'm also impressed with his memory!

He just barely picked up a little cup off of the floor and said, water. Then he remembered that he had a cup of water at the table, so he dropped the cup and ran over to the table to get his water. I love the independence!

And after that he was sitting on the floor and started saying, "PaDa, a-toens?" (grandpa. acorns?... he would go out on walks and find them with grandpa carlson).

For lunch I made him fish sticks (he ate 9 of them!!!) and while they were cooking I said they were almost done. He associates the word almost with driving to grandpa's house (we would constantly hear a little "ah-moes" from the backseat whenever we were driving), so when I said almost he piped right in with "ah-moes a PaDa how-s!?"

On Tuesday we were driving to the zoo with my mom and dad and and my dad sneezed. From the backseat, Alex says, "bess ooo" (bless you). Tawna, did you teach him that while we were down there?

When we were at the airport we saw a big airplane pulling up to the gate, so I told Alex that the airplanes come to park at the gate. so the whole rest of the trip at the mention of airplanes, Alex would say, "air-pane. park a gate" Very cute.

Could it be that easy?

First of all, I have to share my excitement of having 2 dry days! The first was on Tuesday when we went to the zoo. At about 2 I took Alex in to change his diaper figuring that he would be wet. I was surprised to find that he was dry, so I took him in to the potty and he went! Yay!
Then I went to change him when we got home at 5, he was still dry and went potty again.
To top the night off, before he went to bed he told me "poop" and I took him in to the potty and he went poop! Yay!!!

Today he was naked for the morning and he actually told me when he needed to go pee pee. Awesome! I just got him up from his nap and he was dry (!), so I took him potty and we had another pee pee!

So he's currently wearing his new gerber padded/absorbent underwear and having a great time!

This has been a gradual process that I've noticed Alex showing signs of readiness for about since June that I've just kind of gone with as he's wanted to do things. He's gotten better at recognizing when he needs to potty. I'm going to venture to say that the Kushies diapers that we were using with the cotton inner (as opposed to wicking fleece or microsuede) helped him recognize things earlier. Hooray for cloth diapers! So not only did they save us money, they also saved up the cost of pull ups and the length of time actually in diapers (which if we had been using disposables, we may have ended up buying diapers for a longer amount of time). I don't know if my theory of cloth is entirely factual, but I do think it had something to do with it.


*UPDATED* I knew I was probably speaking too soon and jinxing myself with the underwear. Alex peed in his nice new underwear just before Daddy got home at 6. I asked the kid if he needed to go pee pee numerous times... it's just not that easy. Oh well, the undies needed to be washed a few times so that they can actually absorb something (ya... they didn't absorb a whole lot...)

We're Home!

We made it back to Texas! Alex was really good on both airplane rides. There was no extra seats on either flight, so I got to sit with a little boy on my lap for 3 hours. He did well with it, but my legs ended up pretty tired by the end.
Alex was really sad to leave Grandpa Carlson behind at security. He wanted PaDa to come with us. He loved the airplane ride though and was very happy to see Daddy!
I have quite a few pictures from our trip -going to the state fair and the zoo and such- which I will have to post later. Hmm... I don't think I ever posted about our trip to San Antonio with my parents in July... SLACKER!

Alex riding the 4-wheeler outside

Alex riding the 4-wheeler outside from Jon M on Vimeo.

As always, go to the actual video link for the HD version.

Broken and Squishy

On Friday night, Aubrey was watching as I was changing Alex's diaper. Aubrey is the only child in her family, so she only knows what she sees. She stared at Alex's boy parts with concern for a minute or so and then told me, "uh, Alex is broken ....(pause).... I just think he's kind of umm broken".

My sister-in-law is going to kill me for writing this, but it was just too funny of a story not to share.

On the way home from the fair, Aubrey rode with my mom and I and Alex. We were riding along and Aubrey decided to share some of her newest findings, as any chatty 2 year old would. From the backseat we hear her say, "and my mommy is just kind of chubby.... ya, she's chubby.......(pause during which my mom and I were cracking up!)...... and she's squishy (more laughter). Ya she's kind of squishy. And chubby."

As we found out at lunch the next day, my brother had gained a few pounds when he stepped on the scale the other night and told Aubrey that he was getting chubby. Melanie said that she told him not to tell her that because she knew what it would lead to. Well, she was right!

Aubrey was on a roll that day (the broken comment came after the ride home from the fair). What a funny little girl!

Sleeping Stories

The night that we got here, Alex woke up screaming early early in the morning, so I went in the extra room and got him out of his pack n play and took him into my bed. He was still screaming and freaking out for who knows why. He finally got himself calmed down and through the last sobs he took his binky out and told me, "tem -poe?" (temple) He wanted me to sing I Love to See the Temple to him. It was so cute!

Later that morning he actually was talking in his sleep. I giggled a little when I heard him say, "froggie... slide down". We had been playing froggie slide down in the airplane and it's one of his favorite games to play. It was funny that he was dreaming about it!

We Made It!

Well we made it to Utah all right despite flying during Alex's usual bed time. I was thrilled that Alex did so well. Luckily, there were extra seats, so Alex got to sit on his own seat. He loved wearing a seat belt like mommy and didn't scream or cry at all on either flight. He thought it was great fun to bump bump bump as we were taking off and landing and loved going up in the sky.

He actually fell asleep for about 40 minutes on the second flight from Denver to Salt Lake. One minute he was sitting there and the next minute I looked over and he was out. He was pretty tired since he hadn't had a nap that day.

We're having a great time in Utah! Alex has loved playing outside and racing with PaDa and Brent and jumping on the trampoline with MaNa and Aubrey. We're off to the State Fair this afternoon and we may go swimming with Cindy tomorrow (after which, Cindy and I will be going to the U game!!! YAY!).

We're a little cold and I am all about the long sleeves and jackets where as most people are probably thinking it's perfect weather for short sleeves. Going from 95 to 75 is a bit of a shock.

We are having a great time, but it seems like the days are going by way too fast. We love being here!

What little boys like to do with watermelons

Besides eat them, that is.

Alex often has naked times as we try to do the potty thing (plus, he just loves being naked). He saw our watermelon sitting up on the counter and was pointing to it saying "ride". "Uhh... you want to ride the watermelon?" "uh huh!"
So I got it down for him and he jumped on it and rode it like it was a horse (complete with bouncing up and down from one end to the other and then falling off of it) for a good five minutes. It was pretty random and very silly so I HAD to take pictures!

Labor Day

I'm not so sure if it was Jon's ideal way to spend his Labor Day, but I had a great Labor Day.

Today I dragged Jon to several furniture stores trying to see if we could find a queen sized bed (headboard etc.) at a decent price. He was such a good sport and we had a great time walking around with Alex. He wanted to sit on every chair/couch/ottoman we walked by. He thought it was very cool that there was a store full of couches and beds. They had a little kid sized table and chair set at one of the stores that he thought was awesome! I guess the Ikea table and chair set we're planning on getting him for Christmas will be a winner.

I also dragged Jon to Joann's. He has been scarred in the area of fabric stores from many long trips with his mom when he was a kid and really hates going. I like to have him come to entertain Alex though. For this trip he had to come so that he could assist in picking some fabric for curtains for our room. He's usually pretty opinionated and I actually really like having his input. We found a great fabric and now I just have to sew a rod pocket and hem the sides and bottom. Good thing I recently discovered my rolled hem foot! And thank goodness that I only have to make 2! Oh and then a valance for my bathroom. And of course the 2 valances I have left for my kitchen. Good thing I got my crafty room done and am on a crafty high. I have a lot of projects!

We also scored some clearance decorative rods at Joann's ($10!).

When we got home, I made the wall hangings for my crafty room. I got the idea for these from my friend Erin. They were really easy to make and I love how they look. I have to say that I am now addicted to mod podge. I have a bunch of scrapbook paper (it was on sale 6 for $.96 at Joann's!) that I am planning on mod podging to the back of my cheapy bookcases just so that they look cute.


We finished off our evening with a barbeque at the house of some ward friends. We had good food, a good time with the many balls, played Wii and Alex got tackled/knocked over by their dog. The night definitely ended with a bang!

Alex was already a little nervous about the dog. He wanted to be held when the dog was around and would pull his legs up and get all tense if the dog got close.

Jon and Alex were racing outside and the dog came out to play. He's still a puppy and doesn't understand the he can't jump on little people and when he saw Alex running with Jon he got excited and ran right into Alex and knocked him flat on his face. This of course, terrified Alex and he had a good long scream/cry.

We wanted to show him that the dog was okay and that he was just playing so we hung out and looked at and petted the dog for a little while. We probably won't be talking about the dog jumping on him for a good long time since when Jon mentioned it in the car on the way home, Alex started crying again. We'll just try to reinforce that the dog is a nice and funny dog and he wanted to run and play with Alex. It will be a good story to tell down the road.


And since I've slacked on posting pictures for a good while, here are some pictures of my crafty room w/wall hangings -I'll have to take some in the daylight later.