Happy Dress Up

The spookiest thing so far this Halloween is that I got them all out on the front lawn on a blustery day for some pictures!

The annual Halloween dilemma is that's it too dark for pictures once every one's in their costumes, so this year I thought we'd think ahead, for once.

Anakin Skywalker, designed by dad and hastily sewn together by a non-sewing mom. The only thing that matters is that he LOVES it and I'm pretty sure it won't fall apart, tonight. Tomorrow? Well, that's another story.

And yep, you heard me right-designed by dad. Isn't he the coolest? My non-sewing brain couldn't figure out how to pull this one off. I knew I couldn't rely on my old hot glue standby, I can't very well hot glue it to his little body, now can I? So my sweet man designed this baby. I can only take credit for slapping the thing together.
He was feeling pretty photogenic and was more than willing to show off his costume, I think he's trying to "force" something here. Isn't he a hoot!

This one was not so willing to cooperate, she sure didn't want to wear the Care Bear head, but she also wanted a little princess fluff too. Why not? Purple and lime green go great together, and when your cute and two you can easily pull off any self designed costume. She headed right inside for a cookie after this, thank goodness one shot is all it took!

And it was a bit cold and windy for this fairy princess, she's outta here-heading for the front door (and a cookie). I'm sure there will be no small amount of layering going on tonight, as to avoid a frost-bitten fairy princess!

Happy Halloween, stay safe and warm tonight!

More with Felt

Warming up the couch with a bit of felt and fleece.

Now, my couch is as comfy as they come. A brown sectional we love, it's soft and cushy and great for naps. But lately it's been looking a little too, well, brown. For the longest time I've left the matching pillows on. There's nothing wrong with them, they definitely serve their purpose but they're just don't have enough punch for me.

So here's what I did.

I found a fleece blanket that I loved and then picked up a yard each of orange flannel and gray fleece. Nothing really matches each other but they still get along, they go well and I love the colors of each one individually. Plus they look like fall. (Does fall have a "look"? I think so-it's on my couch.) Well, they're kind of like a family that way. They play well together.

I cut them to shape, using my existing pillows as a template and then started sticking them together. For the plaid fleece I just hot glued the fabric together around the pillow. Once the season is over I can just pull it apart and save the fleece for next fall. For the orange felt I used a blanket stitch to close it up over another pillow that I had sitting around in a closet because it just didn't go with anything. Then for the gray I cut it like an envelope and used a blanket stitch to close up the sides, I can just slide the pillow out come spring.

This is so easy to do. Do you have any pillows that just don't go or need a bit of updating? What if you covered them over, or what if you really sewed and used the stuffing in one pillow to make another? That's what I would do if I could sew. But I can't, that's why I use hot glue. But, it's so easy to remake a pillow and it doesn't have to cost a lot. All in all I spent about 10 bucks. I think. But I got four pillows out of the deal. How cool is that?

Felt Album Cover and Tomato Cloches

I love the look and feel of felt, especially this time of year. It's cozy and warm and comforting. But perhaps, even cooler than it's texture is it's price. Felt is just darn cheap, and these days that's a really good thing.

So, what to do with felt? Of course there's the ever popular felt board-that's fun for kids of all ages. But how about something a bit more grown up? I had this red album all ready for a recent project. The size was perfect, the shape was perfect, but the color was not. So I covered it ala brown bag book style. You remember those from your school years? Not only did they protect your very expensive textbooks, but provided a place for doodles and notes and stuff. You know, the things your teacher didn't want you to do while you should have been paying attention in class.

So all I did was use the plastic cover that came with the album as a guide to cut out my felt. Then I trimmed it and stitched it closed.


And wa-la, a covered album. So, here's the only trick I had to deal with-I wanted to cover the whole inside of the album, so I stitched it up on both sides only to discover I couldn't slide the hard album cover in one side. Oops. The solution is to stitch the first side, top and bottom. Stitch one side of the other and then place the album and stitch it closed. Ta-da!
Add some pretty stuff on the outside and you're good to go. This was a gift for a 60th birthday, so 60 reasons was 60 things we love about Mammie.

This is a great way to personalize or update an album, or use for a notebook cover, or a Bible cover....or other cool stuff. How about covering heavy chipboard pieces to make a mini album? There's lots you could do.


Other stuff I'm doing with felt lately: covering pillows with felt and fleece and making an Anakin Skywalker costume. Not sure how that will turn out yet but I'm sure you'll hear about it!

And here's one more cool trick I discovered lately. We had the wonderful problem of lots of tomatoes; when we cleaned out the garden we probably pulled out 12 cups of yellow pear tomatoes. Yumm. The bummer was that they were still pretty green. Here's the solution:

Set it in a sunny window and it works like a charm. Now, I've just got to figure out what to do with so many tomatoes!

noise and neighbors

I read a great post the other day about neighborhoods and being neighbors with those around us. I encourage you to read it here. It reminded me of two things: one, we are truly blessed to be where we are; and two, where we are is no accident.

I know most of you can tell just by the title of my blog that I believe nothing in life is random. Where we are, what we do and love, and all the things that happen to us in life have a specific reason. Thise especially true about where we live.

When we purchased our home we took a long time to find the right place at the right price. What we didn't fully realize at the time was how God was strategically placing us right where we needed to be. Not only is the home itself a perfect fit for what we are doing in life; besides raising kids we serve as youth pastors, our home weekly holds about 15-20 youth in our house. Now our house is not that big, but the layout lends itself really well to this kind of thing. Maybe the biggest blessing is the large "bonus" room upstairs, a perfect place our kids to hang out under the watchful eye of a soon to be youth we adore.

But even bigger than that is the neighborhood itself. When we moved we took the initiative and walked the street to meet our neighbors. Our amazing kids did the rest and have proven to be very effective ice breakers for everyone we hadn't met. Now, this a loud neighborhood. There's lots of activity and noise. Why? The neighborhood is full, I mean full, of kids. Just last night there were about 15 playing outside our home-and that's not even all of them! We are blessed to be seen as the "cool" parents, and usually everyone ends up at our house, if not inside they play out front or in the back. It's not unusual to have light saber fights in the front yard and girls driving strollers around the driveway. Or a handful inside playing the Wii or building Lego's. It's great that our kids love to have friends over and even better that this the place the friends choose to be.

All of this reminds me of my job as a Christ follower. In the book of Acts there's a story about Peter and John. It shares how after they boldly proclaimed Christ and healed a crippled man that those around them noticed that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13). Because they had been with Jesus there was change in them, a new boldness and courage that came from knowing him. That became evident to all around them and it testified about who God is and how he loves. That's what my life is to do and be, but it only comes from me being with Jesus. Once I've done that it's easier for me to love on my neighbors and be Jesus to them, even if only in actions and deeds.

So this is the reminder for me and perhaps the push to you, get out and meet your neighbors. If you haven't seen one in a while take them some sort of treat. Hang around outside on Halloween, share hot chocolate and stories while the kiddos trick-or-treat. (We did that last year and it was a blast.)

It's no accident that we live where we do, God wants to use those that know him to bring others to him. God wants to use us to reach our neighborhoods. Would you be that person who does so?

Starting the day, it was actually quiet for this quiet time today. That was really, really nice.

All dressed and off to church.

The normal ride into and out of church, sitting on the laptop case.
Lunch after church, some of us really got into it.
Then home for one little gal's nap. The boys took a bike ride, Cayden played outside with friends. Once the boys got home I took off for a long run. When I got home I was told, "Mom you stink" by the youngest. I know this to be true, it was confirmed to by her dad. She always says it like it is and he does too. Pizza for dinner with our youth staff. Good byes and good nights. Good day.

It was a good week, fun to chronicle and I'm sure it will be fun to put together in book. But I'm glad it's done, it was a bit tiring to record stuff for each day. But the end result will be super cool.

Now, to Snapfish to order prints.

A Week in the Life: Saturday

The biggest bummer of waking up at 6:15 during the week is that my body doesn't realize I don't have to be up so early on Saturday. So, up early-spent some quiet time reading while the two oldest read (not so quietly) on the couch . Got ready, cleaned up some messes. Started some laundry (every day, never ending laundry).

Read the newspaper.

Cleaned up some more messes (this was yesterday's disaster).
We had some reminders on how to share.

Now every is happy, parked in the garage.
Silly guys-I love finding these kind of pictures when I download from my camera. I didn't know this was happening. I'm sure I was switching some laundry around. Aren't they so cute?

Off to Target with money burning a hole in their pockets. They've saved and saved the money earned from their charts-it was time to shop.

Snack on the way home.
Nap on the way home.
Laundry to fold.
He ended up getting two foam swords, she got a purple cell phone with a matching purse. The youngest got a nap at home. She's got her toy picked out, we'll grab that next time we're out.

After that the kids played outside, a bit bundled. It was pretty breezy and a bit chilly. They didn't seem to mind. Then it was time for dinner, baths and bed. Sounds good to me. They'll sleep, I'll work on some scrapbook projects.

Tomorrow is the last day of the week, it's been hard some days to keep up with this project but so worth it. I'm anxious to see how it will all come together once it's done. It's a great glimpse of life right now. See you tomorrow for one more day.

Friday Pictures

Woke up and ran today, almost got rained out-made really good time today. Home and showered and came downstairs to this sweet face. "Teacher, I'm ready to go to school today," she said.
Getting ready: brushing teeth, combing hair, getting dressed.
Laundry started.

Just a few more loads to go.
Almost out the door.

Took Levi to school, ran to wally-world with the girls. It is a much calmer place at nine in the morning. Found lots of goodies to restock the craft cupboard, a few other essentials and these little guys to replace the wet candles out of these lanterns. Stopped at the library to pick up some reserved books, forgot camera. Home again to make lunch, read books and rest. Nap for both girls today, quiet Lego time for Levi in his room. They woke up rearing to go-too rainy to play outside so we made pillow houses and did lots of jumping. Started getting stuff dinner ready, had some friends over tonight. Dinner ended up being ready much later because the kids made a few poor choices while waiting for their friends to come over: they colored all over a windowsill and window and broke a small glass jar while trying to get a drink. Hmm, this week we've learned that bored kids can cause quite a bit of trouble. Next week we'll do a better job at directing and redirecting them.

Couldn't decide what to make for desert so I made carrot cake and pumpkin cookies. Both equally awesome.

Had a great evening hanging out with good friends, the kids played rowdy upstairs while the grown-ups chatted downstairs. We decided to save all the cleaning up for tomorrow. I fell asleep five time while uploading these photos.

Goodnight.

One Little Word: Change

Such an appropriate word for us right now-the baby decided it was time to lose the diapers and learn the ways of the potty. We've purchased new underwear, had all of three accidents and she is staying dry through naps. I guess it only took us three kids to learn that it's much easier to let the kiddos use the potty when they are ready. It was a bit more of a struggle with the other two, this has been really nice. We're crossing our fingers that it stays that way. We've been buying diapers since March of 2003 (yes, that's over 5 years). Glad to cross that off the budget list!

Oh, and yes, that is toilet paper painted pink on the bottom (no, pun intended here) of the page! It seemed fitting!


Thanks for looking!

Normal Thursday

Normal Thursday. Somewhere along the way we decided that Thursdays should be a bit of a down day, it sure works for us.

Today: Up before the sun, the kids were up with our alarm. They snuggled on the couch to watch a few cartoons before getting dressed. I grabbed some time alone to read before the morning rush and Seth's arrival. Then it was breakfast, getting dressed and off to school. Today it was cloudy and much cooler.

Back home, took some time to work on a few creative projects while the girls painted and the little big guy slept.

Got lunch started, off to the bus stop. Home for lunch and lego building time for Levi (a daily after school event). Then Aida and Seth went down for naps and Levi and Cayden headed to the couch for book time. After six books, Levi took some time to play lego star wars and Cayden and I snuggled on the couch under a blanket. The windows were open and a cool, fall breeze was blowing in-I dozed while Cayden read and fidgeted. When the moment passed she watched a Hello Kitty dvd while I worked on my One Little Word project. Then some housework, Zac home, Seth left and we headed for the grocery store. Playland for the girls, shopping for Levi and me. Home for dinner and to watch the VP debate, baths, charts and bedtime. Time for me to clean off my desk, sort some photos while Survivor was on. All in all, a very normal Thursday. In the middle of it there was rain, which was nice. Feels like fall. I love days like this.

Food for Aida today: breakfast was scrambled eggs, apple for morning snack, lunch a hot dog (she loves them and I so needed to get groceries) and grapes, dinner leftover soup and bread.