Some Crafty Action

So between soccer practice, karate practice and 4-h meeting, I was able to get a little bit of crafty things done.  The first was for the 4-h club.  There's an adult only charity dinner that the fair board puts on.  They also want all the 4-H and FFA clubs to donate baskets/gifts for an auction.  Our club put a whole bunch of kitchen items in a calf feeder.  So the I contributed some aprons.  A mommy and me set.  So since we had a calf feeder, I thought I'd put a fun twist on it.  I made a cow apron with bead eyes, and button nose.  I love to use the satin ribbon for the ties.  And since I figured it would probably sell better as a gender neutral, I used green for the accents.  And of course since this was a 4-h club donation.  

 The mommy apron was a standard, regular apron.  I lined it with muslin.  And put one big pocket.  Then I decided it was too big.  So, I decided to sew up the middle and make 2 pockets. I also used ribbon for the ties on it.  And of course the matching green fabric.

Other than that, we haven't had much other crafty going on.  Our last 4-h meeting we made candles.  And I didn't get any pictures because I made most of them.  The kids were either too young or too scared.

And then there was the demo in the bathroom.  When we bought our house, most of it had been "flipped".  The few things that weren't done were the carpet and the master bathroom.  The previous owners had put in an awful glass door set up.  It was not made for glass doors.  So after recaulking several times, I decided to take them all the way out and put up a shower curtain.  It took me half the morning.  And the majority of it was during naptime.  In fact, hubby was outside watering the yard and when he came in, he was surprised that I had taken most of it was down without help.  But really the frame was in 4 pieces and then the doors.  I eventually made our bathroom look like this.

  I'm not really thrilled about the curtain.  But I was more less thrilled with a leaky glass shower door.  And it matches the paint in there.  Now to finish the decorating and our bathroom with be done.

Springtime Garden

So I've been trying to garden.  The last few years, my gardens have been successful and not so successful.  It seems like after a good year, I'll have terrible year.  The one guarantee is that my roses will bloom.  This year we planted a couple squashes, butterleaf lettuce, spinach, garlic, green beans, tomatoes, and blueberries.  We also hope think that the pomegranate trees will have a few this year.  There are lots of blossoms.  And then we planted sun flower seeds next to the grapes.  So hopefully we'll have some of those too.  But the best part of always having roses?  My hubby has no excuse to never buy me a bouquet.  He likes to trim them back.  So far, I've gotten a couple bunches of these.

 He's the best.   But I'm kinda partial.  Now here's to the rest of the garden growing like the roses.

It's A Pain In The... Shoulder?

A couple weeks ago, I hurt myself at the gym.  And when I say hurt.  I mean, hurt.  I couldn't lift my arm at all.  And imagine having a 2 year old that is super shy and hides under your arm when people look at him.  It's also a pain when you're spouse works all kinds of hours and the housework, and taxi driving, and meal cooking needs done. So I stopped going to the gym.  Probably for good at that gym.  It's way too expensive.  And they don't have a daycare at the gym.  And just when I thought it was getting better, I needed to take the dogs to get their vaccines so they could be shown at the fair.  Now my husband had to work.  So I loaded both kids and both dogs in the car.  Have you ever lifted a 45 lbs basset hound into the back of a suv?  It's not easy.  Needless to say, after doing that several times, I'm almost back at square one with my arm.  Now I'm going to take it nice and easy, watch what I eat, and hopefully don't regain what I lost at the gym.  So here's my post about going beast mode at the gym, taking 4 kids(2 with 4 legs a piece) to the vet solo during a shot clinic, and random housework while not using much of my arm.  It's the life of a mother.

Easter

This year we did a really small, laid back Easter.  Most of their baskets were candy.  But that doesn't mean they didn't love them.  #2 has only wanted to eat candy for all meals since.

I put him in one of #1's outfits.  It had this cute matching hat.  He wanted no part of it.  I just really wanted a picture of it.

 We ate breakfast and then headed to the inlaws house since we did Easter with my parents the weekend before.  We hunted eggs.  And Jet has taken 2 years to figure out the doggie door.  Guess grandma still has someone to call if she ever locks herself out of her house.

Giving Back A Little

A part of being a 4-h'er is doing community service.  When I was in 4-h, our little club did a lot.  It also helped that our leader was a social worker.  But Rionn's club is doing great.  We adopted a family for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  And for Easter we made Easter ornaments, candy goody bags, and cards for a local retirement center.  The retirement center had a big to do going on.  They had an egg hunt, bbq, raffles, the Easter bunny, live band.  We helped set up tables and chairs.  And they let the kids participate in the festivities after they were done.

They had fun.  And the retired people were nice.  We did run into some cranky ones who didn't want "that crap".  But the holidays are hard.  Especially when they see some many other residents with family visiting.  And that's ok.  It was a great learning lesson all the way around.

Spring Break

So spring break was a couple weeks ago.  And while lots of people have this big, fancy week all planned out, we didn't.  We still had martial arts, and soccer, and 4-h, and mygym.  So there was no vacation planning this year.  Usually we'll buy annual passes somewhere and go there for the first time for the year.  We didn't get to talk about that.  So we basically shuffled kids back and forth to their given activities.  We also did Easter with my parents the weekend before school started back.  And on our back into town, we noticed that the circus was in town.  So we went to the circus.  At night.  With school the next day.  So there was that.  Overall, it was a good spring break.  Not as hectic.  No rushing to make reservations either. So I'll conclude now so that you can peruse a bunch of pictures.

Cracking That Shell

My poor Jet.  He is nothing like his brother.  He's shy.  He doesn't want to play or talk or look at strangers.  And while he's meeting his milestones(except talking) he needs some structured social time.  So a few weeks ago, we had to be out of the house while the house was being sprayed for bugs.  And I decided to take him to the mall and do some shopping.  On the way there, I passed a Mygym.  And they had a big sign saying they were accepting new enrollments and there were free classes.  So I stopped and went in.  And we signed up.  I'll admit, I was a little skeptical.  Mostly because they said it can take up to 4 weeks to the kids to be fully involved.  And well, I have one shy guy on my hands.  But we've been going for about 4 weeks now.  And while he isn't completely involved, we've made great strides.  He's trying new things, playing with the other kids, letting the teachers hold him, and he'll do independent play while I sit in the lobby and watch.  Today he had a little setback because there were so many that came to class today.  But he still did half the class.