A One Year Old and His Tattoos

Dear Charlotte,

This is the face of a boy who cannot help but dance when he's given a "tattoo" (aka a graham cracker).

And how could you say NO to that?

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.

Unfortunately...

I didn't win. But it was sure fun trying!

Shameless Promotion WITH a possible prize!

Okay, okay, you probably saw that I had a new blog post and were jumping for joy to see what's going on with me and my life. Well, you're not going to get that. Right now anyway. What you are going to get is a shameless begging from Yours Truly. A few weeks ago I randomly posted a link for a contest from MyShape.com on Facebook. And then promptly forgot about it.

What is this website and their giveaway, you may be asking? Well, first of all, MyShape.com is AWESOME. It's a clothing/accessories website where you put in your specific measurements and preferences and then it uses those to recommend clothes that will look good on your body. It also automatically calculates your size based on your measurements. So you could be a size 4 in one brand and a size 14 in another, but it lets you know. They carry a variety of fashionable brands and are constantly updating. What is this amazing giveaway that has prompted me to write a blog post for the first time in months? They are giving away a $1000 shopping spree to whoever refers the most new users before August 31st. Only I had forgotten about the giveaway until yesterday morning. When I discovered that I was in 6th place. So of course I posted my link on Facebook again. And now I'm in SECOND PLACE. I have no idea how many referals the person in first place has (or how many I have for that matter), but wouldn't it be incredible if I won?!!

Here's what's in it for you. Go to MyShape.com. Set up a free account and enter your measurements. And then come back here and leave a comment that you did it. If you already did it through my link, you can leave a comment too. And tell your friends to do it (make sure they do it through my link). And they can leave a comment too. IF I win, I will use Random.org to pick a "winner" from my comments who will get to order 1 item up to $100 with my winnings. Awesome, no? That's cuz I'm awesome. Seriously, go tell all your friends.

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

Friday Five

Chicken Little Loves His Fluff!

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!