Tool apron - quick and inexpensive Christmas present.

Last night I whipped up a little christmas present for Kyle...a tool apron! It was really a quick and inexpensive project. I braved JoAnns on Black Friday and scored some fabric, pretty cheap. I bought a 1/4 of a yard of the pocket fabric and only a 1/3 of the orange, so it probably only cost about a $1.00 to make. Also, time wise it was great. From start to finish I would say you could make it in an hour or so. It took me quite a bit more than that because I wasn't really paying attention and sewed the pocket to the wrong spot twice. So here is the finished product.
Here is Kyra modeling it for me. Here is a fantastic tutorial for One Hip Mama, that I used for this project.

One more project!

I made a quick little skirt for Kyra, for $3! Its very similar to a "bandana skirt", except a bandana skirt is more for a 18 month old or so (since its made out of just one bandana), so I used fabric fat quarters instead, so that I could make it a little longer. Fabric fat quarters were on sale for $1 at Joanns this week. I basically got two fat quarters of the same pattern, and one for the contrasting bottom. You basically sew strips of the contrasting fabric to your skirt fabric, then sew your two skirt fabric fat quarters into a tube. Then add elastic at the top, and hem the bottom. It really only an hour or less. I also appliqued some flowers on the bottom.

I had a couple people ask how to applique (the flowers on the bottom of the skirt and also the baby onesies in the previous post). There is this magic paper that they sell at Joanns called Wonder Under or Steam to Seam II. The cool thing about this stuff is that the fusible webbing (the stuff that makes it stick) is inbetween two pieces of paper. So you start by taking the paper off one side of the fusible webbing and sticking it to you fabric, and iron over the top for about 10 seconds. Then your cut out your pattern from the fabric. At this point I just use by cricut machine, and it does all the work for me. Here is a pretty good tutorial on how to cut out your pattern without using a cricut machine. After you cut out your pattern you stick it to your onesie or skirt or whatever, and iron over the top for 10 seconds and it is there permenately! It really super easy and quick!

The sewing bug!

The crafty/sewing bug bit me!!! I think I'm over its effect for a while, but this is what came out of it! My sister just had her third baby. So I made all three of the kiddos matching shirts. Once I figured out what I was doing, they were pretty easy. I'm now addicted to this craft project! I got the original idea from here (chasingcheerios.blogspot.com). I think I might try and make Kyle and the new baby some matching train shirts.

Here is a close up of Calivn's shirt.


I also whipped up some cloth diaper burp cloths. I love these because they are really quick to personalize, and they are the most absorbant burp cloths ever.

In case you were thinking of making some, don't try to line up the fabric with the already made seams on the cloth diapers. The cloth diapers don't have straight seams!

I also made a car cozy for my nephew and for Kyle. The idea is similar to a crayon roll. Instuctions to make this, or to buy it can be found here. The kiddos can put their cars in their individual garages, and then pull them out to drive on the road. It has been a great toy for Kyle to play with on Sunday during church.

Then it wraps up into a nice little roll that fits nicely in the diaper bag.

I switched gears a little bit, because Kyra really wanted to look spooky for her preschool party...of course I didn't really start to think about it until about 8 PM the night before. We were out shopping so I grabbed some fabric at Walmart and made this little hair clips for her piggies.

Then, for the last project, I wanted to spookify her shirt. Neither walmart nor target had any cute little girl halloween shirts. So I grabbed one of the pairs of halloween socks in the $1 section at target and made them into arm warmers that she wore with her black shirt! She loved them!

Now the effects of the bug bite have subsided a little, and I can go back to panicking about getting ready for the baby!

Halloween 2009!

Halloween was SOOO much fun this year. Both kids loved it. They loved picking out their costumes and getting ready, decorating, singing halloween songs (Thanks Jo-Anne for teaching them some:)..EVERYTHING about it!! For our outside decorations I hung up a spider egg sac, but after some crazy wind I think it may of lost some of its "spookyness", since yesterday Kyra told me, as I was trying to fix some of the webs "Don't worry mom, its still looks cute."

I was so happy that Halloween was on a Saturday this year so that Karl could still do all of the activities with us, including Trick or Treating. This morning, the kiddos and I let Karl sleep in, while we made him a surprise Halloween breakfast of "Spooky Cinnamon Rolls". Basically they are regular cinnamon rolls with orange and purple frosting. They were a big hit! I LOVE food coloring!

After breakfast we carved our pumpkins. The kiddos weren't so amused by the idea of cleaning out the pumpkin guts. Kyra did at least stick her hands in a couple times...Kyle refused, something about a snake being inside (but that's a different story). We did a Minnie Mouse and Goofy pumpkin.

After breakfast and pumpkins we headed to the zoo. The weather was perfect, and apparently no one else goes to the zoo Halloween morning! So the kids pretty much had free run, which was great! For costumes this year Kyle wanted to be Lightening McQueen, and Kyra surprised us by wanting to being a witch!

This evening we went to a friends house for dinner before heading out trick or treating. It was SOOO good, with smoked ribs, and all the trimmings. Karl was one happy camper!! Here is Kyle with his best buddy, Eli! These two are so funny together!

Here is Kyra and Bailee, the inseprable duo!Here is a picture of all the kiddos! It was such a fun night! The kiddos did great trick or treating, other than Kyle trying to walk into people's houses so he could watch TV, trying to negotiate which piece of candy they give him, or if they took to long giving him the candy, taking matters into his own hands...otherwise the kiddos were fantastic! Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Patch

We went to Apple Annie's this year, to pick out some good lookin' pumpkins. Due to Karl work schedule we actually went on a Friday morning, which turned out great because there really weren't very many people there. The big buckets of corn kernals is always a big hit!We tried the intermediate level corn maze again. (Last year, after about 1/2 hour we came out of the maze through the entrance). Kyle seemed to like the corn maze but was really concerned about all the corn kernals on the ground, and kept trying to stop and pick them all up...so it took a little while to get through it....But this year we made it out...through the EXIT!! Here are Kyra and her friend Bailee giving us some thumbs ups.Then it was pumpkin pickin' time.

It was so much fun, and the kiddos loved it!

Water fun

Here are some cute pics of the kiddos and Karl a couple weeks ago (Yes, I'm sorry Renna the kiddos were still playing in sprinklers a couple weeks ago.)

Difference Between Boys and Girls

This morning, for breakfast Kyra and I were making french toast, bacon, yogurt and fruit. Kyra requested "Mermaid" French Toast, which basically is adding a couple drops of pink food coloring to the egg mixture. So once we sit down, Kyra tells Kyle that we are eating "Mermaid French Toast". Kyle gives a significant amount of Ooooos and Ahhhhs, then picks up a piece of bacon, and excitedly yells "Mermaid Meat!!!" Takes a bite and announces "Mmmm...Yummy!"