Of Humming, Pinning, and Hotdogs

What I learned from my 5 year old at breakfast this morning. "Mom, did you know you can't hum if your nose is plugged?"







You just tried it, didn't you? And you got about one second in and realized that unless you opened your mouth, there was nowhere for the air to escape, right?

I started a new blog all about another website that is all about stealing other people's ideas and pretending to yourself that you're going to try them someday when really, you know that you won't. Only, I decided to start trying them, hence the new blog. But don't worry, it won't be taking the place of this personal blog - you'll still get your quarterly updates. :p

Things that have happened since we harvested all that stuff from our garden: Turtle's in kindergarten (I think he may have started before I posted that, but whatever); Bunso started crawling and is now close to walking; Chicken Little changed his name to "Hotdogs" and discovered the amazingness that is pirates; Ricochet turned 8 and was baptized.

There you go, everything you ever wanted to know about my life in the last few months. And now you can carry on with your life until your next quarterly dose of awesomeness.

Long Time No See

Dear Charlotte,

Remember me? The one who used to blog here? No? I don't blame you. A lot has happened in the last almost year since I really blogged. (Wow... almost a year!) What have we been up to? I don't really know where to start...how about a few visuals.

Oakley 4th of July Parade

Camping at Capitol Reef

Eccles Dinosaur Museum

Chicken Little's 1st Birthday

Halloween

Ricochet's 7th Birthday Party (Thanks Grandma!)

And Christmastime

That's pretty much what we've been up to of late. Well, that and buying a house and moving. One little detail that took over a great deal of our last 10 months that we have no pictures of. How is it that we bought a house and have no pictures?! Well, we did. And it's been great - we're really loving it here. Mostly. If the snow would just GO AWAY.

Oh yes, there is one more little thing:

BUNSO (which is a Filipino nickname for "the littlest one") joined us at the end of February.

Ain't he cute?

Now if he would just learn to sleep at night I'd be a little more functional.

So there you have it - our past year or so in pictures. Any questions? No? Good. Because I've got a baby to go feed.

The $1.50 Dress

You might be like some people and think you can't sew. Or you might be like me and know you can't sew but refuse to admit it. Well, cute Kathy (who can sew) posted this tutorial for a sundress and I thought, Hey! I can do that! So I did. My first attempt was slightly less than incredible and will remain a mystery for both of you that read my blog. Let's just say I made it while Princess Ricochet was asleep so I couldn't try it on her (so it hit the floor) and that it did NOT shrink up by half when I did it and she's the thinnest stick this side of Texas (so I had to pin it three times to make it tight enough) and the sleeves weren't in quite the right place (so they kept slipping up off her shoulders). And of course it was Sunday morning when she saw it and had to try it on and loved it and had to wear it to church. Did I mention pinning it three times? Just checking.

ANYWAY, being the persistent person that I am, I had to give it another go. That and I have a lot of fabric just lying around that needs to be used for something. This is try #2:

I cut the width down to just under 1 1/2 times the width around her chest (not quite wide enough...), only sewed the outside edge of the sleeves with elastic and made it much shorter. I also placed the sleeves a little further to the outside (if that makes any sense) and they seem to stay put a little better. This one is made from a jersey-type fabric and I think I like it slightly better than the regular ol' knit I used first. And it took me less than 2 hours from start to finish.

So, $1.50 for a spool of elastic thread, fabric I already had, and less than 2 hours work for a look this priceless:

Not bad, eh?

Before and After

"Mom, I want bangs." That's what Ricochet has been telling me for the last couple of weeks. I usually cut her hair, but seeing as she has a perma-part and I just wasn't quite sure how to make that work, I didn't want to go there. Since I was going to get my hair cut anyway, I decided to take her along and make it a girl's day. So here she is, all growing up and stuff.

Before:

After (it was really sunny, hence the squinty eyes and forced smile):

A Really Great Idea...Or Maybe Not

Turtle and Ricochet were outside playing yesterday while Ben did some yardwork. It was a beautiful day. Turtle was playing in one of those big plastic cars made by such companies as Little Tykes and Fisher Price. You know - the ones you push with your feet like Fred Flinstone. You see that hill down there that they were sledding on during Spring Break (only 2 weeks ago, I might add)? You've probably figured out where I'm going with this, no? Turtle got this Really Great Idea to go down that hill in his little car. Being the neglectful parent that Ben is, he had no idea.

Point of fact: Little Tykes cars for preschool sized children are not made to safely travel down large hills of dirt and weeds. Not even medium hills.


As you can imagine, the result was less than desirable. Ben brought Turtle in crying uncontrollably while he (Turtle) tried to tell me what happened. The gist of what I got out of it was: The car, big hill, you know, tipped, bonked, you know, a thing. He had obviously hit his face because that was where he was holding, but at the time, I didn't know exactly what had happened. (Yes, Ben brought him in crying and then went back out after telling me no more than "He fell." I'm fairly certain this is why Heavenly Father gave mothers the primary responsibility for the care and nurture of their children. But I digress...) He seemed generally in good condition, just scared and a wee bit hurting. The next day, his eye/cheekbone/nose is still sore and a little swollen and looks like this (only, really, it looks worse than this because the camera didn't capture the purple color around his eye very well, but it is, indeed, purple):

Maybe it wasn't such a Really Great Idea after all.

Spring Break My Foot!

Ugh

Happy Birthday Turtle!

Turtle is turning 4 on Sunday!

He had his birthday party last night and it reminded me why we decided not to do birthday parties every year for every kid. Because I can't just invite a couple kids over, feed them cake and ice cream and open presents. Oh no - I have to handmake the invitations and invite all the friends and make them each their very own cape and mask to decorate and train them to be super heros and feed them dinner. So for the last week I've been sewing and cutting like crazy. Blame it on my mother. I'm not entirely crazy though - I do have one sanity-saving tip: ditch the cake and ice cream and replace them with donuts and frozen Go-Gurts. Seriously. You'll thank me later.

Happy Birthday Little Man! We love you!

Ski Week

Officially known as President's Week in dear ol' Park City, we just finished a week off of school. Which also means a week off of work for Ben. It started by having cousins over for the weekend. And then, Ben who doesn't do vacations told us Sunday night that in the morning we were going to get in the car and drive south for a few days. We're all a little sick of the cold. Literally. The coughing hung around for a month and is just now gone. So we did. Get in the car and head south.

We figured we'd stay in Cedar City and then drive down to St. George for a day. We had a great time. Especially when Turtle started screaming at 1:30 in the morning and then barfed all over the bed/wall/floor. Good times. Let's just say he doesn't travel well. Letting him stay up late and eat a bunch of junk probably didn't help either. We're good parents like that. We stopped at Cove Fort on the way down and took a tour, swam in the hotel's pool that was rather dusty because of construction, stayed up late watching the olympics (much to Ben's dismay), visited the Dinosaur Discovery in St. George (where our future paleontologist Ricochet was enthralled and asked in-depth questions about everything and we had to finally pull her away because Turtle and Daddy were getting antsy), played miniature golf (of which I sadly have no pictures), ate lots of food and paid too much for it, saw Princess and the Frog at the dollar theater (which was really a $2 theater, but that doesn't flow off your tongue quite as well, ya know?) and just enjoyed our family time together. Interestingly, we ran into another PC family at the movie theater in St George. Who'da thunk? Pictures, you say? Yes, here are a few pictures for your viewing enjoyment.

Cousin Princessa V apparently should have had a nap that day...

Cove Fort

Do I really need to label where we are in this picture?

Each of the kids got to pick something from the gift shop at Dinosaur Discovery...

Turtle picked a little stegosaurus puzzle.

And Ricochet picked a mini excavation kit. As she was excavating through the exotic plaster to find the dinosaur bones, she was all atwitter at the "discovery" she was about to make.

No, I didn't forget this one - Chicken Little did indeed come with us. He just doesn't do much yet so he didn't get as much camera time. Poor Chicken Little.

Friday Five

Dear Charlotte,

5 Names the Kids Have Suggested for Chicken Little's Real Name
1 - Maryanda
2 - Squirt
3 - Chicken Little
4 - Sparkles
5 - Hearties

Not So Friday Five

Dear Charlotte,

Okay, so it isn't Friday, but I missed it this week. I had planned on posting this, but I never got around to it, so here it is. Consider it a special Sunday surprise!

Blowing Smoke and Dandelions
5 Pics from Memorial Day Weekend

And yes, we are proud that Daddy's a smoker. ;)

A Little Safety Matter

Dear Charlotte,

Since I don't really want to make my blog private, I've decided to start referring to the chilluns by nicknames. But I don't want to use nicknames that they actually respond to. For a little background, you ought to know that we give names to our children while they are still en utero. And I don't mean normal names. Ben picked #1, #1 picked #2, and #2 helped pick #3. These are the names I'll be using from now on, and I am in the process of going back and changing old posts.

So here we have
Ricochet

Turtle

and Chicken Little.

Back to School Already? You Betcha!

Dear Charlotte,

Yesterday I decided to do a little back to school shopping. It is indeed only April. BUT with some of the deals going on at the outlet mall, I couldn't help it. So here is what I got:2 pairs of jeans from Carters
The rest is from The Children's Place:
1 Skirt and 2 sets of leggings2 pairs of gloves and 1 hat (hat and 1 pair gloves for Turtle)
2 pairs of super cute, not to mention SPARKLY pants

3 cute sweaters, one of which is, of course, sparkly
3 long sleeve tees - one is a thermal fabric with mandatory sparkle
2 turtlenecks and a cute dressier shirt
I also got her 1 pair of flipflops for the summer, which were the only things she was allowed to wear before school starts, which is why there is no picture because I can't find them now.

So, for 6 shirts, 3 sweaters, 4 pairs of pants, 1 skirt, 2 sets of leggings, 2 pairs of gloves, 1 hat, and 1 pair of flip flops, how much did I spend? IF I had paid retail prices (which, of course, I wouldn't do), the grand total including tax would have been $271.72.



I don't have that kind of money. I only spent $51.92 - A "savings" of $219.80. She's already got short sleeve shirts if she doesn't want long sleeve, so there ya go. And unless she needs new shoes by then, school shopping is D-O-N-E.