Boy Shirt to Girl Shirt

I have been wanting to try this project ever since I first saw it on one of my favorite craft blogs but just never seemed to get around to it. I finally did it today and I have to say, it's really stinkin' cute! I followed THIS tutorial and finished it in a couple of hours - including interruptions, of course! I used one of Jayden's old outgrown shirts and the belt is just what was left from the dress that I altered earlier this month. It's a total coincidence that the shirt looks almost just like the one on the tutorial - complete with a green belt and everything!
I decided to have Riya go outside for pictures this time and she spotted the ducks by the pond in our backyard. It made for a pretty cute picture, don't you think?

Time for Glasses!

Today, Jayden got glasses! This is my attempt at getting a picture of a genuine smile. For some reason when I try to take a picture, he either looks away or he gets a fake smile that doesn't really look like him. Oh well - it's still cute! :)
Jayden's taste in frames was very interesting and had I agreed to some of the ones he was looking at, he would have some big red, yellow, or "bumble bee" style glasses. We think these are much cuter! When he tried them on, they had the stickers on the lenses that told the brand (nickelodeon) and a picture of a cartoon on it. When we came back to pick them up, he put them on and very politely said, "The lenses are great but these aren't the frames I wanted." He thought the stickers would get to stay on them. He decided that he liked them anyway - thankfully!
He is supposed to wear them most of the time - all the time in the classroom and if he's watching a movie/TV but he can take them off for recess/playing. On the way home from the eye doctor, I told him to tell me something that he can see better now that he couldn't see very well before. He said, "I can see that the traffic light is green and I couldn't see it before." Poor guy! I had no idea his eyes were that bad!!

It changes his look so much! We think he's as cute as ever though! 
He thinks it's awesome that he will have to wear glasses for the rest of his life. I wonder how long that excitement will last... :)

We also had a great time with some friends tonight! We ate way too much food and stayed way too late - but it was a ton of fun! Thanks for the get together guys!

"Can I play a Wii game?"

I heard this question repeated about 10 billion times today (I counted)! This question was coming from Jayden. The same Jayden that played for 3 hours yesterday. He's on Spring Break this week so I figured I would let him enjoy some Wii play time but it seems like he can't get enough of it!
We were going to go bowling this morning with some friends but those plans fell through so we just went to one of their houses to play for awhile. My kids had so much fun but I heard the question a few times before and after the playdate. Then, we got home and had lunch. More asking. Naptime came for the girls and I told him the same thing I'd been telling him all day - "Maybe you can when Daddy gets home." He then had an eye screening appointment and he asked again.... are you seeing a trend here? It didn't stop through dinner prep. Today of all days, John comes home about an hour and a half later than usual. Of course! :)
Dinner happens and then, FINALLY, he gets to play. Lucky kid! He gets the bonus of having John play with him. I think the wait was worth it -  he got about an hour of game time in today.

I hope the rest of this week will have less game requests. Or maybe I'll just let him play...

Oh, by the way, he needs glasses. He has another appointment tomorrow to get a thorough exam and glasses. He's pretty excited! 

Jars, Anyone?

Today, I tackled organizing/cleaning the kitchen, living room and the master bedroom (didn't finish yet). It was awesome! I filled one more box. One big bag of trash and one bag of recycled papers. I'm keeping up the pace. These baby food/jam jars have been being stored in our limited cabinet space. I can't bring myself to throw them out because I know I can find some sort of use for them. However, they are being kicked out of the kitchen and moved into storage in the garage. Not to sell - just to store.
Hmmm....

"Who wants to play with Daddy's hair?"

Are you ready for the answer to that question? Before I give it, I must give some background information. If you've known John for longer than me, you are probably aware of his love for having his hair played with. It is one of his favorite things - next to having his back/arm/neck "tickled". We have recently discovered that Jayden is great at all of these things and Riya has decided that she wants to participate too.
So, today, we were all together in the living room and John randomly says -
"Who wants to play with Daddy's hair?"
To which the kids responded, "ME!! ME!! ME!!" and they both jumped up and raced over to get behind his head. Riya won and Jayden stomped off with his arms folded and pouted that Riya got to do it first! John and I both looked at each other in shock - he had a huge smile mixed in, of course.
I said, "Jayden, you can play with Mommy's hair." He didn't want to. That isn't as fun.
The pouting didn't last very long but I'm still shocked it even happened!!
I suppose he's trained them well...

More Sewing...

Last week, I found some striped long sleeved women's shirts on sale at Wal-Mart for $1 each. I didn't care much for them for myself but imagined all sorts of possibilities on how to re-purpose them for my girls so I got 3 of them. I found this tutorial and thought I could totally do this with my new shirts! This is such a simple tutorial! Try it!!
This one was a woman's size small shirt so it ended up being too short to make a dress for Riya. It is a shirt instead. It looks super cute on her! I skipped the belt though because the shirt wasn't as loose as the one in the tutorial. I'm planning to take the other 2 shirts (size large and x-large) and make them into dresses for the girls using this same method. To make them more dressy, I think I will make the straps out of gathered ribbon. And, yes - they will be wearing shirts under them! :)
If you do it - send me a pic! I want to see it!! You can do it in about 30 minutes. It is THAT easy!

Finished Quilt

Here is the finished product of what I started yesterday. I spent the majority of the day working on it - with little interference from my kids. (side note: Ever since Jayden's ear infection has cleared up, they have been playing great together! Who knew clearing up a problem we think started in December could fix that!) It turned out a lot smaller than I had planned and I had a few issues when I was finishing it but, overall, it turned out cute - the perfect size for a carseat! :)

Today was a good day to quilt because all of that repetition makes me think - this time it was a lot about my brother, Chris. Today was the 10 year mark for the day he passed away. I find that each year gets easier in some ways and harder in others. I think about him often and I'm sad that he never met John and that my kids never knew their Uncle Chris. I am also sad that we never got to know each other as adults. I was 18 when he died and a senior in high school. I was caught up in my life and didn't really know how to handle the death. It was my first experience with it. Almost 2 1/2 years ago, my Dad passed away as well. I think when that happened, I mourned for both of them. I felt so much sadness and dealt with a lot of emotions that I had never dealt with before. I won't go in to all of the details here. It brings me happiness to know that my Dad and Chris are together again and someday, I will see them both again.

Measure, Cut, Rotate, Repeat...

This is what I've spent a great portion of my day working on. It's a rag quilt for a baby shower this weekend.
Today I shopped for the fabric, washed/dried it, cut it all out, matched the pieces, sewed the X's in the center and  tried to find an arrangement that worked. I finally figured it out so I'll piece it together tomorrow.
Measure, cut, rotate, repeat... Match, match, match... Sew first piece, sew second piece, etc... Sew first piece again, sew second piece again...
I don't quilt very often simply because, to me, it's a very tedious/repetitive thing.
I get bored too easily, I suppose.
The finished product makes it worth it, though! Stay tuned...

Stickers!

If you've known me for very long, you probably know that I don't care for stickers. They kind of gross me out. I've gotten a lot better but I often find myself clenching my jaw when my kids try to offer me one (or more). I won't go into my reasoning but I am totally justified. :)
Today, Riya purchased (with her earned tickets) a Disney Princess bag that came with markers, crayons, an activity book, stamps and.... stickers. These stickers were black and white so she got to color them (similar to a coloring book). She then decided it would be great if she stuck them all over her arms and her face. I had her pose after she had removed some.
She tried to offer me some because Daddy and Jayden took some.
Thanks for the thought, Riya, but no thanks. *shiver*

Park Fun

The weather was so nice today that we just had to get out and enjoy it! We went with some friends to one of the local parks and the kids LOVED it! I realized while we were there that this summer will be so much fun for Emma because it will be her first time to really explore the outdoors. Last summer she was still a baby so she couldn't do a whole lot of exploring. She loved the slides, the climbing and the wood chips on the ground. Riya loved the swings, as usual, and climbing on all of the equipment. Jayden loved the freedom to run with his friend and two new park friends - it seemed like they were playing "Pirates" or something. I loved just being outside - not needing a jacket and not being too hot. Perfect weather today. Welcome Spring!

40 Bags Progress...

Today I set out to re-organize the girls' room. This was one of the places that I thought I wouldn't be able to pack a box or bag but I ended up almost filling a grocery bag of trash and I ended up with a small box full! Nice! This makes garage sale box #6 and once the grocery bag is considered full by my standards, I will have purged a total of 10 boxes/bags! Not bad huh? So far I've done the master closet (partially), master bedroom (partially), master bathroom, pantry and the girls' room.
Let's keep going, Sara... :)

Altered Dress

Last night I made this dress and I wore it today to church. I guess I shouldn't say that I made the dress. I only made part of it. I found this dress at Goodwill - brand new with tags still attached - and thought it would be perfect with a little alteration. I found some matching fabric at JoAnn's and decided on making a bubble skirt bottom. I had to add about 9 inches on to that dress to make it hit my knees! (Can you believe people actually wear dresses that short?!) Then, I just tied some extra (serged) fabric around my waist to pull it all together. I love how it turned out! I think the dress cost including fabric was around $10. Love it!
What do you think?
(You can click on the picture to see a larger image)

Target.

I love Target. I could spend hours there. Today, I went there to return some things and pick up a few things - alone. I don't go too often anymore so the fact that I was alone encouraged me to browse a little bit. I got lost in there. I'm not sure what it is about Target but it just makes me so happy to walk around and look at all of the cool things they have. I happened upon this little beauty and was shocked to see the price. These go for $49.99 regularly. We love to entertain but because I can't justify spending that much money on something that I would only use occasionally, I've never paid much attention to it before. Today, however, it was marked down to $12.48. "WAIT... WHAT??" Yep. Unfortunately, this was the last one and it didn't have a box or instructions. Hmmm... is it worth it? I called John to discuss it and decided that it absolutely was worth it! I'm so stinkin' excited about it!
Are you wondering what it is? It is a food warmer with three serving sections. You just plug this baby in and decide if you want it on high or low and it keeps your food warm and pretty looking at the same time.
Steal of a deal!

The Organized Pantry

Today, I decided that I've had enough with my messy pantry. I completely reorganized it. Our current kitchen has no pantry so we had to make the closet under the stairs serve that purpose. It is kind of a difficult space to work with but we managed. Often times, we'd just stack stuff on top of other stuff because the space wasn't very efficient but that all changed today. I stacked the two shelving units that were previously side by side and I moved the cart next to them. It used to be in the back of the closet. After purchasing some new containers/canisters, each shelf has a function and everything has a place. *sigh* LOVE IT!
(I managed to completely fill a big garbage bag just from the pantry! Score!)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

In my search for authentic Irish cuisine for dinner tonight, our friend Chris suggested that we make Bangers and Mash. I'd never heard of it before but he gave me a recipe so I made it. This is the kids' dinner - with the "bangers" cut up. It is basically sausage with mashed potatoes and a sauce that goes over it. The potatoes were cooked a little differently and the whole thing was so yummy! I looked it up and gave the family a brief history of the name of the dish. The sausages are called "bangers" because supposedly during World War II, these sausages were used as ration and it was said that if they were heated to a high enough temperature, they would explode. Thankfully, the ingredient responsible for the explosions is no longer put in the sausages!
This is also a dish commonly eaten by the Brittish. We all got to eat a dish from our heritage tonight!
Thanks for the idea, Chris!

Leprechaun Box

Tonight, we prepped for St. Patrick's Day by making a Leprechaun Box. My friend, Heidi, told me about this tradition that they do and I decided to take it on as well. :) We chose a big box with the hopes catching a big Leprechaun! We decorated it and put it next to the window in our living room and the kids went to bed anxiously awaiting the morning.
This isn't the best picture but it will have to do. The other one like it is more blurry and Emma is crying. I'm not too sure where Emma's clothes were but she is wearing a diaper, I promise. :)
Thanks for the idea, Heidi!

Sippy Cup Challenge

When introduced to the sippy cup, both of the girls have had a hard time holding it up while drinking. Of course you'd expect this but how long is this supposed to last? It can be pretty inconvenient to hold the cup the whole time they are drinking it! :)
Today, I decided Emma needed to try on her own. I mean, really try. We've had her "try" other times and she just acts like she has weak arms. "It's just.... too.... heavy!" is what it seems like she's saying. BUT - today, I helped/showed her how it's done and SHE DID IT!! I had to snap a picture for proof!! I'm so excited! This is one of those silly mom moments where, unless you've been there, you don't understand how something so small can be such a big deal but it totally is! YEA EMMA!!!

Happy Pi Day!

Today we celebrated Pi Day (3.14) by going to a Pi(e) party at our friends' house. It was soooo much fun and we had SOOO much pie! There was a pie eating contest and after a tie breaker, guess who won...? Yep - John! Way to go, honey!
There were other cute games too - all celebrating the fellow nerds scientists/engineers that we have become friends with since moving here. :)
Thanks for the fun guys!!

P.S. - I give John a hard time about being a science nerd/geek but he knows I am joking. I am actually quite proud of how smart he is and how dedicated he is to his field. Love you, babe!

Nursery

Last Sunday, I was sustained and set apart as our ward's nursery leader. When I received the call, I had very mixed emotions about it. I won't go into the details of those emotions here other than to say that I was really loving my current calling and I have served in nursery before and it wasn't my favorite place to be for various reasons. After a lot of pondering and praying about it, I began to be pretty excited about my new calling and knew that I needed to embrace it. The nursery in our ward is very structured - which is very much needed due to the amount of children that attend every week. I work better with structure so I feel like I will do just fine. Last week, I followed the former nursery leader around as she showed me how things work. Today was my first time "on my own". I am definitely not on my own though! I am very blessed to be in there with some great nursery workers! We have a need for a minimum of 9 workers - we currently have 7 called workers and several regular substitutes. Hopefully, we will be fully staffed soon and we will be able to run even more smoothly than we already do. Today wasn't too bad. I felt a little bit like I was all over the place but I had a lot of help from them and they showed me the way.
I love those little kids already. I hope that I can help make their introduction to the Gospel a special experience for them. I realize that most of these children will not remember their nursery experience but I know that it will help shape how they feel about Primary and church in general. I hope to learn some things from these precious children who have so recently left our Heavenly Father. I hope that I can learn to be more like them - more loving and more pure in heart.

Cartoon

Today, I went to a Stake Relief Society activity and it was a lot of fun. I learned about food storage, focusing on things of eternal value and the importance of education. I wish I had gotten a picture but I didn't.
BUT...
Later that day, the kids and I were in the girls' room and I was snapping pictures of them playing when I started playing with the settings on my phone. One of them is a cartoon setting so they each got to see what they looked like as a cartoon. Here is my Emma. Cute huh? :)

Bop It!

Some awesome friends of ours from Texas gave us a goody bag when we moved. One of the toys was a travel sized Bop It. The highest score you can get is 25 points and until tonight, John and I were the only ones to reach that goal. Jay's been working on it and it just so happened that this picture is of the time where he did it! He was concentrating so hard and he surprised himself! When he finished, the look on his face was priceless!
Good job Jayden!!!

40 Bags in 40 Days

We don't celebrate Lent but when I saw this idea, I thought it was perfect for me. As previously posted, I'm really working on decluttering our home and I've made a few significant dents so far. I was checking my news feed on Facebook and someone had posted on Peter Walsh's page a link to someone's blog that talked about this goal. They were going to use Lent to rid their home of 40 bags of stuff in 40 days. At first, I thought "40 bags is A LOT of stuff! Do I even have that much?" The more I thought about it, I decided that I would make it be that much - we can definitely part with that much stuff and I was going to make it my goal. I started with my list of areas to declutter - I could only come up with 12. I figured I would add to the list as I went. Here is my list with scribbles and everything. I'll try to post my final list as well to see how I did. I have decided to do my garage sale on the Saturday after Easter. For now, my bags/boxes of garage sale things will be in the garage. That still counts. I will seal the boxes up and they will be out of the house.Trash and recycle are my other bag categories. I figured I will use any size from grocery bag to trash can size and they will all count. Same for the boxes - some of my boxes are quite large and some are not. It should all even out in the end. Regular, daily trash doesn't count for my 40 bags - it has to be a bag of trash/clutter that I've cleared from the designated space. I'm excited! Is that odd?
Ready, set, GO!

Helping Mommy

As I was straightening up the girls room tonight, Emma was busy at work helping me clean and picking up her kitchen set toys. She decided they needed to be washed, appearently. She was putting them all into their dirty clothes basket! I put one of Riya's dresses in there while she was doing this and she looked at me like, "MOM! You are messing me up here!"
Thanks for your help Emma! :P

Groceries, Groceries and More Groceries...

Tonight, I went grocery shopping not only because it was my "grocery shopping night" but because I didn't go last week and we were in desperate need of some more food! :) Often times, I will go to Payless (Kroger) for the produce and meat and then go to Wal-Mart for other staples. I realize that Wal-Mart price matches other stores' ads but I still like to go to Payless because they often have good mark downs for things approaching their expiration date and they are also the only store that carries our cereal brand of choice. This is my cart towards the end of my Payless trip - notice the clearance items? I'm sure there are more in there. Yes, that is 5 boxes of cereal. We love that stuff! I really don't care for the shopping itself but I love the feeling of having a stocked fridge and pantry. It keeps me sane... I think. :)

Monopoly in Cards

On Mondays, John usually has a group meeting so he gets home late. He surprised us today by coming home in time for dinner because it was canceled! We decided to play a game since we didn't do it on Saturday night. Jayden did great playing the card game of Monopoly - it was his first time and he got second place both rounds! Please excuse the popcorn crumbs on the floor - that would be Emma's doing. :)

Dress Wearer...

Here it is! What do you think?? She looked very cute in it and check out that pose! :) She was very excited for her Sunbeam teachers to see her in her new dress "that Mommy made".

Chicago #2

Can you believe that I only got 3 pictures of our Chicago trip this time?? I am kind of bummed but oh well! Today was such a blast! We left our house around 7am - got to the temple in time for the 9am session. Heidi and I went through while John and Thomas took the kids to the Dairy Farm Museum that we went to last time. We met them there and they went to the 12pm session together while Heidi and I went to IKEA. We spent about 5 hours there. *sigh* This picture is of the girls at checkout in their cool car cart. :)
Great day!!

Dress #2

Today, I finished this dress for Riya. I think it is really stinkin' cute and I can't wait to see her in it! I have to wait because I finished after she was already in bed. :)
Here's what I did:
I took a white shirt that was her size but was too short in the length and the sleeves were a little too short. I  made it a short sleeved shirt and cut off about 2-3 inches off of the length. I took an old skirt of mine, cut the top off, gathered it along the top, and stitched it to the shirt. I then took some ribbon, pleated it and sewed it to the front of the dress but left long tails to tie in the back. I also cut 2 button holes in the center of the ribbon to attach the flower to so that it can be removed  for washing or if I just choose a different color. I couldn't decide if I wanted the flower to be yellow, white or blue. Now I can change it up as I want. I made that flower out of the part that I cut off of the skirt.
Stay tuned to see her wearing it....

Relief Society Activity

Tonight was our Tri-Ward RS activity. We had dinner, a cute program and then a service project of making fleece blankets for a local children's hospital. Check out those sisters working hard on those blankets!! There was another table to the right of the camera's view too! It was my last activity to help plan as I just got called to be the new nursery leader for our ward. I'm glad it was so much fun!!
Nursery, here I come.... again. :)

(You'll have to excuse the picture quality, I had to use John's phone (mine died) and it doesn't have the same settings as mine does to keep it from being blurry.)

Ah, Television

Today was kind of a rough day. Riya woke up around 4am throwing up - a lot! Because she and Emma share a room, Emma woke up crying. We decided to bring Emma to our bed in hopes that she would fall back to sleep but it wasn't happening. In order to allow John to get some sleep, I took Emma downstairs and let her play (with the lights mostly off) until she got tired enough and I slept (lightly) on the sofa. She finally climbed on me and fell asleep around 5:30am - just in time for Riya to throw up again. Luckily, because we were downstairs, it didn't wake her up. Riya was acting fine for the rest of the day but we still took it easy. After we picked Jayden up from school, they got to watch a show on TV and this is what I saw. How cute are they?? :)
Emma looks a bit dazed because she was. Her sleeping schedule got kind of messed up because of her early waking.
Such is life. :)

Silly Girl

I decided to take a few pictures of the girls today at lunch. Usually, Emma turns her head away and Riya poses. Today, Emma started hamming for the camera - this is one of the faces she made. She was laughing while she was making this face. This is becoming the new classic Emma face. We love it! Her look is really changing a lot lately! Riya, on the other hand, decided to pretend she was sleeping for the camera. :)