Crayon Roll Winner!!!!

The winner of my crayon roll giveaway is Jennifer at Rather Be Crafting. Jennifer, I will be sending you the white crayon roll! Congratulations!

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway!

Hooray! It's a giveaway!

I'm participating in Sew Mama Sew's May giveaway! I'm giving away a crayon roll.

My kids love these. We keep one for each of them in the car so they can each have a set of crayons.

To enter please leave a comment telling me you if you prefer the purple or the white crayon roll. Enter only once please and make sure that there is a way I can contact you, either through your blog or an email address. I will not be shipping internationally for this giveaway. The giveaway is open until 6 p.m. PST May 31st. I will randomly choose a winner on June 1st and post the winner on my blog. Good luck!

Monogrammed Pillow

I made this little pillow for my son's friend for her birthday. I made a purple monkey pillow for her sister's birthday. She originally wanted Hello Kitty, but I couldn't find it. I've been eyeing this little bird fabric for awhile trying to think of something for it. The cover slips off, so she could change it, but I guess then I would have to make her another cover. I think it turned out cute. I think I might have to make one for her brother now.

I won't show my face there anytime soon

Tantrums. I hate them. Both of my kids can throw great ones. One of the things I hate is that I don't know where they are going to take place. Take today for instance.

We ran to Albertsons on our way home from swimming. I needed french bread for dinner tonight. Littlebit decided that she wanted to carry the french bread. Fine. I saw a box of doughnut holes and being very hungry, I picked them up. Lovey wanted to carry them. Not fine. Littlebit threw the bread and refused to walk toward the checkout. I picked up the bread and she proceeds to run toward the exit. I had to throw the bread on some random stand in the deli so it wouldn't appear I was trying to run out of the store with a $2 loaf of bread. I pick her up as she is flailing and make my way to the checkout. Seeing that all of the check stands have a lot of people I decide to go through self-check. BIG MISTAKE.

I manage to scan my 2 items and get set to pay when Littlebit leans on the bagging area. The screen flashes to remove the last item. Littlebit was barely touching the bagging area. I pick up Littlebit which results in screaming and more flailing. I am doing my best not to drop her and to make matters worse I recognize someone in the next check stand. Great. I look back at the screen to finish paying and see it still says to remove the last item. I removed all of the items and it wouldn't go away. Now, normally there is someone watching the self-check, but today there is not. Littlebit is screaming, people are staring, a line is forming and there are no employees willing to help me. The lady at the self check in front of me went to ask customer service for help. After five minutes, yes I said five minutes, someone finally came over and do you know what she said. She just looked at me rolled her eyes and said, "You know that the whole thing is a scale and if they (said with distaste) touch it, it will register. I guess I can fix it, but they aren't supposed to touch it. I guess I can fix it." I wanted to scream, "I'm not an idiot, you twit, I know they aren't supposed to touch it, but a two year old doesn't and it is at her height and telling me that they aren't supposed to touch it isn't going to fix the problem. The problem is that the screen won't go away after I removed the item (the item being my child). It is your computers problem, not mine or my child's. Now stop being so rude and just fix it and let me pay." Now they were a few other choice words in my head that I won't type here. I actually said, "Yes I know, but the screen won't go away." Throughout all of this Littlebit is thrashing about crying and screaming and people are staring at me. Funny how as I was leaving there were two employees at the self-check. Hmmm...

Leaky faucet

Yesterday as we drove home in the pouring rain, Lovey yelled, "God, stop the rain!"

I heard, "Mom, stop the rain." So I told him that I had no control over the rain.

Lovey replied, "I told God to stop the rain. You said that God could hear what I was saying and that I could talk to him."

"Yes, God can hear you."

So he yells louder this time, "God, turn off the faucet." Well this caused me to laugh and then that sent him on a roll.

"God, turn off the leaky faucet."

"God, fix the leaky faucet. It's leaking. It's broken. See mom, the rain is like water pouring out of the faucet. Hey, God, did you hear me?"

How tall am I?

Lovey, being shorter than most of his friends, is very interested in how tall he is and how much he has grown. We decided to make him a height chart for his room. We used some leftover wood that was in our garage and had Lovey paint it with paint left over from his dresser. I love that he painted it himself. I then cut a 120 inch measuring tape to fit the chart and used modge podge to adhere it. We then decoupaged pictures for each measurement and used my label maker to record the date. He loves it. We still have a few more pictures to add. We also made one for Littlebit.

100th Post and a new outfit for Littlebit

This is my 100th post. Do I have something witty to write about? Nope.

Just a new outfit I made for Littlebit. Unfortunately she cries every time I try to put something I made on her. The day she wore it we had a lot of compliments. The jacket is the Cute as a Button Baby Jacket pattern from Jackie Clark and I made up the skirt. I should have made the jacket a size larger, but it was my first attempt at long sleeves and a hood. It worked out well.

This is the back. Here is the front.

Reconnecting with old friends

Yesterday I went to the Museum of Glass with a friend I have not seen in two years. Two years! How did so much time pass? We only live about 60 miles apart. The last time I talked to her on the phone, it was only because my purse called her and she called me back and that was close to a year ago if not more. I don't use instant messenger anymore since we switched cable providers, so we just never talk. How sad.

Darcy and I have been friends since high school. We played volleyball together all four years and became good friends at the end of our junior year and throughout our senior year. We drove to California with two other friends (who I have not talked to in ages either) and we camped the whole way. Darcy was the first person I called when my parents left on my first day of college. I didn't know anyone. She drove down with her mom a few days later to visit.

Darcy and I lead very different lives. I'm a stay at home mom of two. She's single and always very busy and active in different things. One thing about Darcy is that it doesn't matter how much time has passed or how different our lives are, it still seems like we can just pick up were we left off and keep going. Someday we will have Granny's Pie Shack and we will be outside on the porch sitting in our rocking chairs.

Closet makeover 2

Lately I have been in a spring cleaning mood. I've been trying to get rid of things and clean up and reorganize. (Although someone, Mom, not to name names, Mom, keeps bringing me stuff.) I decided to start with something I look at every day. We have a closet under our stairs that first served as an all purpose junk area. Things that we hardly use like suitcases, sleeping bags, etc. were thrown in there. It was also the coat closet, but the coat rack went across the closet so you had to go through the coats to get anything out of the closet. It was rather useless.

When Littlebit was a baby I was annoyed with the toys spread around the living room and the messy closet, so Lovey helped me move everything out of the closet. Big Daddy came home to a huge mess. This was my plan because I told him I wouldn't move anything back into the closet until it could be organized. We put up shelves on one wall to hold the toys and cut the bar for the coats and made it into two and put it an alcove on the side. He was skeptical that it would work because of the size of the closet, but was pleased after it was completed.

This has worked well until recently. Now I have two kids who play in there and a kid throws his backpack in there because it doesn't have a place to go. I also store in there most of the art supplies and a lot of Disney moves on VHS that Nana has left at our house, so I needed to clean it out. That is what we did yesterday. During quiet time and while the kids played outside I completely emptied the closet, vacuumed, and rearranged everything. I hung hooks up on the side opposite the shelves so Lovey's backpack, Leappad backpack and firefighter hats have a home. I took some of the bins from my craft room (which I will tackle next) and resorted the toys. I tried to get rid of a few, but I was caught. I'm pretty pleased with my results.

This is what the closet looks like from the doorway. It is sort of an awkward space.
Here are the coats and shoes. The adult coats are up above. Big Daddy made the shoe rack.
The toys are organized and put in bins for now. The games the kids can get to are on a shelf and the art supplies are on a shelf the can't reach next to the coats and scarves. The vacuum usually sits under the game shelf.
The hooks are the 3M removable hooks and they work pretty well for holding up the backpacks and hats.

I'm pleased with how it turned out and ready to tackle my next project.