Heads Up my Friends

Baby Bundles are coming up in April!

We are collecting quilts, receiving blankets, onesies, socks, outfits,

booties, caps, bottles, pacifiers & size 1 diapers.

The Stake has a goal of 150 bundles.

Last year we did 250! As Humanitarian Specialist for the Mather ward,

t'is my responsibility to motivate & collect these items.

This is where my computer addiction comes in.

I found easy patterns for baby caps & shirts made from a plain T-shirt.

You can find the patterns here plain cap, tied cap, 90 min shirt.

From only ONE women's medium t-shirt, I can get 2 caps & 2 shirts.

(imagine what I can get from a men's XXL)

So as a Ward, we'll be collecting T-shirts.

Who doesn't have a collection of t-shirts from the gym,

giving blood, races, high school, work, etc.?

How often do you wear them?

Even if they have a stain, we can cut around it.

I can even use the ribbing around the collar if it's in good condition.

After we collect these t-shirts, we'll have a "Recycling & Cutting Party"

Here, we'll get together & cut out the patterns.

You don't need to know how to sew!

Below was my practice. I took one of my t-shirts size medium.

Traced the pattern for the shirts.
The sleeves.
Tied cap.

Here are all the pieces I got from the shirt.

What was left of the t-shirt.

The ribbing from the collar.

Finished shirts. Don't look too close.

One sleeve is bigger then the other, throwing off the collar.

This is why I do practice ones first. I also measured wrong on the blue ribbing.

Booooooo

But now I've learned my lesson.

The 2 caps.

We're also going to make these booties. If you don't sew, you can help cut.

You can also use old receiving blankets for these booties.

You know, the ones you don't want to throw away

but are stained so you can't donate them.

2 pairs of booties can be made from 2 "Quick cuts" or Fat Quarters.

Joann or Wal Mart for $1 -$2.

Pattern for the booties.

Shout out Friday

To all parents who have ever hid from their kids while eating a treat.

Cause these Girl Scout cookies are MINE!!

Thanks Mom!

Bad math

laziness + late night TV smut + Ben & Jerry = GUILT

GUILT + the need for productivity + late night =

Yup, sewed it right in there.

I wear gardening gloves when I free motion quilt for friction.

Saves your arms & back.

What we've been up to.......

Disney on Ice!! I got 8 free tickets from a radio station.

Below is a pic of what our view was like.

I know. not a great pic.

What Charly did the whole time. She pointed & "ooooood" at everything.

I had thought about not taking her,

but after watching videos on UTUBE, she was lovin it.

She danced & stared at the videos as long as the boys did.

She did pretty well at the show until the end.

The boys watching the show. It was lots of fun till the Tinkerbell part.

BORING!!

I would have left early if I'd known that was the last part of the show.

Grandpa's birthday. He's getting his spankings from the kids.

He gives them back.

Nate was very proud of this. Need I say anything more?

Granola bar anyone?

I made a skirt that I love & will wear! You can find the instructions here.

It was pretty easy. Except the times I was swearing

at my seam ripper every time I had to undo hours of work.

I found the fabric at Wal Mart for $1.50 yd. For those of you who don't sew,

that's the cheapest you will ever find in your whole entire life.

Although it was probably cheap because instead of saying what it was made from,

it said, "contents unknown."

$ 3, some sinful words & a bit of time for a super cute skirt!

Shout out Friday

To all the women in my life

who have ever had this sentence said to them....

"Hey Mom, wanna smell my finger?"

Shout out Friday

Shout out to all my peeps who have ever

used a vacuum to clean off their kids.

Little Dresses for Africa are outta here!

I finally finished them! Thank you to all of you that helped.

I sent out 134 dresses.

That's 134 little girls that will get to have something new to wear!

What a great job!!

By the way, angels helped with the shipping. Not only those of you that helped financially,

but I did all that I could for the cheapest shipping, & got an estimate online.

When I went to the post office, the cost was much less than the estimate.

I asked the gal if she was sure it was right. She said it was.

I was expecting to pay $200 to ship out the boxes. It was less than $50.

I stood there, staring, looking for the invisible hands that were playing with her computer.

I really had been stressing about this part of the project.

Isn't it nice that HE knows what we need. Even something so simple. Thank you.

I'm a total spaz & didn't take pics of all my dresses.

Above are a couple I took awhile ago.

And to show some pretty flower trim we added to about 30 of the dresses.

Here are some pics from the website. I encourage you all to visit the site.

It's inspirational & exciting to read about people

who are doing good things in the world.

They have sent over 30,000 dresses to Africa. That's just sooo amazing.

The organization was asked to send some dresses to Haiti due to the recent events.

They rely on donations to ship out the dresses.

If you're interested in helping them more,

you can alway ship pillow cases or supplies to them.

They have several sewing groups to do the work.

I know I will be doing this again.

Charlotte Turns 1

Charly turned one on January 30th! We were very excited for her.

The boys made her some cupcakes, had some family over to eat them.

She had a great day, even sat on Grandpa's lap for an extended amount of time.

Posing for the camera. Had to put her in the bath directly after eating a cupcake.

Watching the movie "UP" with her brothers.

That movie played non-stop until I mailed it back to Netflix.

Even Charlotte liked to watch the movie. I think it was all the colors.

Her favorite thing to do is to make a mess.

Here she is un-organizing my sock drawer.

Yes, my sock drawer is organized. She enjoys pulling everything out.

We went & got her pics taken.

Thank goodness for all the free coupons we get from The Picture People.

I tried scanning them in, but I couldn't format the picture to jpeg.

MAC has changed their program.

Anyone know how to change pics from TIFF to jpeg?

Any ways, here's a link to check out her photo shoot. Pictures

On her one year check up, the Doc was concerned about her weight.

She hasn't gained any weight in about 4 months. She's in the 3rd percentile.

I was shocked cause all this kid does is eat eat eat.

So the suggestion was to put EVOO in her food. Gross.

I guess it's more french fries for her.

Her stats: 17 lb 3 oz

2' 4.5"

New Research Project

I have decided to start a new research project. For every time I go someplace with my children, & my kids get in the way of a stranger, I will keep track of the response of each stranger. Their response will fall into one of three categories:

1. They smile &/or laugh. Say that's OK. Comment on how adorable my children are & start a 3.5 minute conversation about their own children.

2. Might smile or give "the look." Possibly say excuse me or "that's alright."

3. Grunt or completely ignore the irritation. They give me a serious "look" even when it was their own fault & they should have said excuse me instead of myself or my kids.

Maybe I can get paid for this type of research...............

Dear Mommy......

Dear Mommy,

You were so much fun today! When you weren't looking, I figured out that I can now reach on top of the table!! There is so much up there to play with. You smiled at me & said, "go ahead & play with my wallet. I'm sure you can't open the snap." Well, I laughed & worked hard till I got it open. You didn't even catch me until I had pieces of your wallet all over the house. It sure was fun.

I'm also glad that you decided to clean out the filing cabinet. You had everything in nice neat, organized piles. Just ready for me to attack & have fun with. I spread them all around the room until it was pretty! Then what did you do? Put them back into your piles only to get distracted & leave the room so I could make it pretty again!

I love you so much Mommy! Thank you for the fun we had today.

Love,

Charlotte

Nate has his GOLDEN birthday!

January 3rd was Nate's 3rd birthday.

We had lots of fun celebrating.

The PJ Hasleton family was in town,

so we had some great Heavy Heavy Hangs.

Charly going for Nate's loot.

Nate enjoyed receiving some Peanut M&M's, gummi worms, fake Lucky Charms,

fruit snacks, a coloring book, granola & some yummy Scooby snacks.

LOOK!! A good picture of Mommy Pili. We never have enough pics of us mommys.

Nate showing he's 3 on his special day.

A week or so after his family bday celebration,

we threw Nate his first official party with his own friends.

He decided on a "Where the Wild Things Are" theme.

We love this book, the movie was ok.

I saw this cake online & tried it out. I am so NOT good at decorating cakes.

Even making a simple cake with plain frosting looks as if a 3 yr old frosted it.

But it turned out ok right?

Here are some other fun ideas I saw for this theme.

I made (can't you tell?) this "pin the crown on the bday boy" game.

We traced Nate, then let him color it.

Jared turned our hallway into a forest with crepe paper & green garland.

Did you know Wishing Well is done? I went on it's last day :(

So sad, I love that place. But I did enjoy getting a ton of garland for 49 cents.

That way I didn't feel guilty cutting it up then tossing it out.

The rest of the house was turned into a jungle thanks to Laurie & Daneece.

Lots of ivy, greenery & flowers. I didn't take pics of it all,

but Jared said I went a little overboard with it.

We first read the book a couple times.

Us having fun with the games, everyone made their own crown.

Next year we will start with how Jared was raised.

You get the option of having a birthday party or get $25 cash to Toys'r'us.

I can't do 3 or 4 of these every year.

After the party & presents, I asked Nate what his favorite thing was.

He said it was the balloons.

The birthday boy with his scepter Jared made for him.

He truly is my wild thing.