Patchwork Skirt for Jennabee

I'm so lucky to have a friend like Marie'. I consider us to be more than just friends though, because our husbands are cousins.

About a month ago I told her about an idea for a skirt that I wanted to make for Jennabee. I had a vision for it, I just didn't know how to make it happen. Marie' graciously volunteered her amazing sewing skills and had me and ALL SIX of my kids over to her house for FIVE HOURS yesterday as we sewed it up. That is what I call an amazing friend. Thank you so much Marie! I couldn't have done it without you!

The weather is already cold here (we've already had overnight lows in the teens), but we are about to embark on a 9 day vacation to San Antonio, TX, where the weather is still warm enough for shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops. I think this skirt could look just as cute with tights and the right pair of boots.

Flannel Nightie

I've been in a sewing mood this month. Jennabee was recently given a flannel nightie that she loves, so I decided to make her another one so she can alternate. I didn't have a pattern so I made this one up based on her other nightie. I used a flannel print that I picked up at a garage sale last summer. I cut the sleeves too big, so I made puff sleeves out of them and added a little elastic to tighten the arms. I'm glad I did because I think it adds a nice girly touch.

Dress for Jennabee #2

Last year I made a dress for Jennabee--my first attempt at sewing clothing. I've sewn a few simple things since then, but decided I wanted to try a dress again. Marie' let me borrow her "Girly Style Wardrobe" Japanese pattern book, and when I saw view "t" I knew I had to make it for Jennabee. I used a vintage sheet I found at a second hand store for the skirt, and paired it with a pink solid I happened to have in my stash for the bodice. I sewed the sleeves on the wrong way but didn't have the will to take them out and fix them. They are supposed to look like a ruffle, but because I sewed them on backwards, they look more like a capsleeve. Oh well, I still think it's cute.

A big thanks to Marie' who helped me finish the bottom ruffle correctly after I made a mistake attaching it. She also gave me a lot of great tips and pointers for the next time I decide to sew a dress, which will probably be next year!

Major Milestones

Joseph and Grant learned how to do their own laundry yesterday. Talk about exciting! I figured if they were smart enough to run complicated electronic devices, they could handle the washing machine without any problems. So now I only have to wash for four kids instead of six. It's a wonderful feeling!

Ada started walking this past week and it's been fun to see her little body toddling around, gaining strength and confidence each day.

Joe's brother Jeff got his mission call yesterday. The whole family came over for dinner and he opened his call. He then secretly wrote down the mission on a slip of paper and added it to a bowl he had already filled with other possible missions. We then each drew out a slip of paper, and as we called out what mission we had, he wrote it down on a poster. After the list was complete, he started crossing off one mission at a time. Oh, the suspense he put us through! The last mission standing was.......Argentina, Buenos Aires South mission! We're so excited for him! Both Grant and Uncle Darren guessed Argentina before he even opened the call, so they deserve some kind of prize.

And Off-Topic: Several ladies have babies due this month and I've made a diaper tote for each of them. Each tote holds a small case of wipes and a few diapers. Thanks to Marie' for the idea and for tracing the pattern for me! The pink one is for Jeanne, because she's having her first girl after two boys, and I couldn't resist making it pink. Rachel's is the denim one in the middle. Collette's is the one on the far right, made from a vintage tablecloth. Are there any other babies being born this month that I missed?

Ragged Squares Quilt, Top Chef, and Name that Picture

Ragged Squares Quilt




I finally finished a quilt! Every other quilt I've ever started turns into an unfinished project because I just don't have the patience for quilting. This quilt on the other hand was small (toddler bed size), simple, and machine quilted with straight lines. The tutorial can be found at crazymomquilts blog. It's actually supposed to be 5 squares by 6 squares but I made it 4 by 5 because, like I mentioned above, I get impatient. This quilt is for Jennabee's bed.


Top Chef

A couple days ago the boys were having a cooking competition. Austin made a dish all on his own by cutting bananas, putting a little dollup of whipped cream on them, and topping them each with a cocoa puff. I thought it was very creative. Joseph was the judge and picked Austin as the winner. You can also see in the picture that he lost his first tooth.

Name That Picture

Jennabee found the camera and went crazy taking pictures again. Can you guess what these pictures are of? (answers in small print at bottom)

1. unflushed toilet
2. pointed finger
3. nasal aspirator up against an upsidedown wii box
4. roll of toilet paper

Ok, they're not THAT hard to figure out, but they are very quirky things to take pictures of.

Long Time, No Blog

Another Project

I recently made these wall decorations for the girls' room out of some fabric scraps I've been hanging on to. It's a garden/flower/butterfly themed room, so I thought these would fit in nicely. Joe says they look like modern art--not my typical soft edged style.


Austin's Midnight Moment

Austin, our five year old, has never wet the bed. If we forget to take him potty before bed, he cries in the middle of the night, I wake up, take him to the bathroom, and he goes back to sleep. The other night, I heard "the cry", and was about to get up when I heard stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp (I could tell he was running in place, not towards to door). I jumped up and ran to his room. When I flipped on the light, he was standing on the area rug in the middle of the room with his pants down, peeing on the floor. He pulled up his pants and got back in bed and went to sleep. I pulled the area rug out and took it straight to the front porch so I could deal with it the next day. When morning came, Austin asked where his rug was. I told him he peed on it in the night. His confused look said it all--he had no recollection of the incident. Is that what they call sleep walking?


The Big Experiment

This month is our big food storage experiment. The rules are 1) we can't go to the store to buy anything and 2) we keep track of everything we use. At the end of the month, we'll multiply everything we used by three to make sure our three month supply will actually last three months. To help out, I made menus (breakfast, lunch, dinner) for the whole month. Before the month started I stocked up on stuff we didn't have already in our food storage, including three huge packs of TP from Costco. Our experiment will actually end next Wednesday when we leave to visit my family for Thanksgiving. It's been so nice not to have to shop for groceries--a chore I'm not fond of. I think shopping once a month is a habit I would definitely like to keep. Today we drank the last of our milk, so it's powdered milk for the rest of the month! I've also been grinding wheat and baking bread every other day with pretty good success. The other night for a treat, we let the kids take a quarter out of their piggy banks and we all went to Safeway and got a quarter pop from the machine. You wouldn't believe how happy the kids were to drink pop.

We're also not spending any money other than pay for phone, electric, water, sewer bills etc. We're not even buying gas. We filled the cars up on Oct 31, and if we run out we'll walk everywhere. Joe's been walking to work, and we've only driven to church and back, so for now I think we'll have enough gas to get by. Joe's having a hard time not ebaying and doing impulse buys at Walmart; hopefully this will break him from these habits. I can't wait to see how much money we've saved!

Recycled Pants

Jennabee is short on pajama/loungewear, so I was excited to find a tutorial on how to make pants out of t-shirts. I raided my bag of "giveaway" clothes and found a few shirts that were perfect candidates for Jennabee. The only materials needed were the shirt and thread and I whipped out a pair in about 15-20 minutes. Because she has been refusing to wear anything that isn't "pretty", I embroidered a freehand flower on the front. I used chain stitch for the flower center, back stitch for the outline of the petals, and satin stitch to fill the petals.

Mixed Bag

I want to let everyone that Jennabee's doing great and thank you all for your kind thoughts and comments.

Here are a few mini posts about the past week's events.

Tough Love

Joseph and Grant missed their first baseball game of the season last Monday. Not because they were sick, not because of a scheduling conflict, but because they REFUSED to write the final draft of their one page Abraham Lincoln reports. All they had to do was copy their rough draft onto a new sheet of paper and make a few minor corrections along the way.

Once I teach the kids their lessons, they only have an hour of book work (max) each day, which consists of math, spelling, and writing. We can easily finish our school day by noon every day, but the kids usually drag their feet when it comes to the book work. In the past, I became frustrated nagging the kids to get their work done, so Joe and I made a rule that they have to finish their school work by 2 p.m. or they lose a privilige (sports, computer, etc.). When Joe came home for lunch at 12:30, they were still whining about the report and hadn't picked up their pencils to write a single word. Joe told them that if they didn't finish by 2 p.m. they couldn't go to their baseball game that night. You would think that would be enough motivation for my baseball obssessed boys, but the 2:00 deadline came and went and their papers were still blank. When I informed Joe that they didn't finish their work, he had the boys call their coach and tell him they couldn't come to the game that night because they didn't finish their school work on time. Then at game time, he drove the boys to the baseball field and had them apologize to their team for not being able to play in the game. (With Joseph and Grant gone, their team was a player short and they had to forfeit). After apologizing to the team they came home, ate dinner, then went straight to bed.

It was hard seeing their disappointed and sad faces, but I know I'd rather have them learn about choice and accountability now, while they are young. If they don't finish their work by 2 p.m. once more, they have to quit the team. They've finished their schoolwork on time every day since. I hope that means they've learned their lesson!

The Empty Bottle

What would you do if you found this bottle empty when it was full the night before?



I wanted to panic, but decided that would be useless and searched for facts instead. I interrogated all of the children and I found out that after opening the so called "child safety cap", Austin had swished and spit the entire bottle into the sink. No swallowing. Phew!



Dress for Jennabee



A few weeks ago I made this dress for Jennabee. It was my first attempt at sewing clothing (besides the ugly green and black checked pajama shorts I made in middle school home ec). This was such a fun project that I made two pairs of shorts for Jennabee afterwards (and realized I should have started with those). Next up is shorts for the boys, then a skirt for me.

Sewing Bug

If you visit my cousin-in-law Marie's blog, you will catch a sewing bug. She makes such cute and beautiful things, it actually made me drive to our storage unit and bring my old, dusty sewing machine back to life. I can't make most of the awesome things she sews, but luckily for me she posted a couple of simple projects that I was able to attempt. They are full of flaws and my house is a mess after working on them, but it feels so great to create something.

Marie links to this website for a bib pattern. It's for smaller babies, so if you want to make one for a toddler, you'll need to widen it by an inch or so, and lengthen it 3-4 inches. The bib on the left has a pocket, and the one on the right has no pocket and I made it a little longer.

She also has a link on her blog to a cute headband pattern that wasn't too difficult. Here is a picture of Jennabee in one of them.