Thursday's projects

Yesterday was a very busy day.  I'm sorry I didn't make it on to blog with you.  I had planned on it but spent the entired day sewing.  I started off by bringing my sewing machine down to the kitchen table, a cutting mat, rotary cuter, scissors, pins, thread, rulers, measuring tapes and who knows what else down to the kitchen.  I did this for a few of reasons.  I need to free motion stitch my quilt and the only table large enough is the kitchen table.  I also wanted to work on some dresses for my girls for the 4th of July and most of their toys are downstairs.  The last reason is that I had a couple girls coming over to learn to sew and my sewing room doesn't have enough room for 2 sewers.

 What I did was buy some white shirst for my girls.  You see three because their is also one for a friend of Sarah's who had a birthday and wanted a dress.  I cut off the shirts first.

 This was when it was looking somewhat clean and organized.  I spent a lot of time with my measuring tape and calculator trying to figure out the measurements I wanted.  I wanted to gather each layer to the one above it.  So I measured the lower edge of the shirt and doubled it.  Then I added half the measurement to the red layer.  Then for the middle layer to took the measurement from the red material and added half of it to itself.  I did the same for the blue (lowest layer)  So the measurements just kept getting bigger and bigger.  Then I started cutting.  I got all of it cut and realized that I needed about 3 more inches of blue to finish the last skirt so we took a quick trip to Hobby Lobby.

 Here it is all cut.

 This is Yana's dress.  I started with hers since it was the smallest of the three.  I used my serger on the edges.  I gathered all layers and this is what I got:

 I think they turned out pretty cute.  I haven't hemmed them yet.  I want to finish them so I can change the settings on my serger only once.

 I was a little worried about the middle layer not being white but I really like how it turned out.  My girls are starting to make weird faces for their pictures.  Bare with us please.

 I decided to let her make a fun pose.  Look at those muscles.

As I'm sure you've noticed Yana is still wearing pants.  I just traded shirt for dress.  They didn't wear them very long because I need to hem them and I didn't want them ripped and or stained.

I got the idea for this dress at church one Sunday.  I saw a little girl walking around in a dress that was layered like this.  Her top was the top of a pair of overalls and the material was obviously different.  I don't know if they bought it or made it but it was so cute.  I decided that I would use a shirt instead so I didn't have to put another one under it.  I like the idea and I think I'll use it for other holiday's as well.  Sarah loves twirling in her dress.

That was yesterday's project.  After the girls went to bed I started free motion quiltingin on my quilt and forgot how much of a workout it is for my shoulders.  I use my sewing machine.  I don't have a long arm so I have to strategically roll and maneauver the quilts under the arm of my machine.  I explained my process to my husband last night and he just said "was this your idea or someone elses?"  It was all mine.  My first 3 quilts look relaly nice on top but there are a few bunches on the backs of them.  They each were better than the one before and then I found the perfect way to do this no matter the size of the quilt to get the best results (so long as I don't rush through it).

My secret trick is that I sew straight down the center of the quilt.  It isn't very wide.  Just enough to split the quilt in half.  Then I turn it and start in the middle on one side of that line and work in quarters.  It seems to really work for me.

Well I'm getting really excited to see this quilt finished.  I promise to show pictures once I've given the quilt to who it belongs to.  Like I said before it is a gift.

Did I kill it?

Ok well, we decided (that means my husband decided mainly because he knows more about the subject than I do) that we should (meaning I) should mow the lawn again although I just mowed on Friday afternoon.  I was supposed to mow yesterday but it just didn't happen.  So this morning I go out and pull out the push mower and am trying to figure out how to lower the blades.  We decided (see above) that this week we should lower the blades so the seeds to come back so often.

Anyways I finally get it figured out and fill her up with gas and get going.  This was right after breakfast.  I wanted to have it mowed so we could also go to the library but I wouldn't have to melt later.  As I am mowing I realize that it isn't picking up all the grass so it looks like I'm not even trying to bag it (which I am).  After a couple passes I decide to check the bag and it has bagged about half the bag when it should be full by now.  I realize as I'm dumping the grass in the garbage bag that the grass is still wet.  I didn't see dew on the cars this morning when my husband left for work so it didn't occur to me that it might be dewy.  So I just keep going.

I noticed with my first pass that the grass was really short.  Short enough that it is no longer green.  Did I kill it?  Did I lower the blade too much?  Oh well.  I did what I was told to do and kept mowing.  Then it dies on me.  So I empty the bag again and it is again only half full and should be full by now.  I tried to start the mower and it wouldn't start.  Did I just kill the mower too?  I figure I just over heated it with the damp grass.  So, it's time to go to the library.  When we get back it should have cooled off enough to finish mowing and the grass shouldn't be so wet.

We go to the library reading time, get some books, and come straight home so I can resume mowing.  It is hot already but I know it will only get worse.  So I start the mower up and with the same problems as before I finish mowing.  It took longer and it doesn't look like I tried to bag it.  It also looks yellow so I'm afraid I've killed it.  Luckily I didn't kill the mower.  Although had I killed the mower my husband would have just laughed at me.

I would be horrified and he would laugh becuase you see I brake most things around here.  My husband and kids don't brake anything compared to me.  I don't do it on purpose and my husband was warned before we got married that I could brake steal balls.  He now fully understands this.  So if I have succeeded in killing the grass he will probably still laugh at me and fix it.  Why do you think I married a man so handy at so many things?

Oklahoma hates me and Idaho taunts me

If you know me than you know I HATE the heat.  I don't say that lightly.  I really really don't like the heat.  I never have.  I love snow and 70 degree weather.  Water in Idaho is cold no matter how hot it gets and we are used to it.  When I put in my papers to serve my mission my dad teased me that I'd end up in the Sahara Desert or New York city.  Heat and big cities aren't my thing.  So I was sent to Russia (which I loved and miss very much).  It was super cold in the winter and I loved it and super hot in the summer and although it didn't seam like we lived in big cities we did.  So I got both but didn't mind so much.

Now I am living in Oklahoma and I thought we were doing well.  This year it seemed that June was having mercy on us.  Last year it seemed sooo hot and this year we have loved the weather....until yesterday.  100 degrees!?!?!  Who is in charge of the thermostat here?  All week of 100+ weather.  All I can say is "I'm sorry Sarah we will not be going for bike rides often and I'm sorry you will be stuck indoors where we wont have heat stroke."  It is supposed to get to 105 today.  Ya so I'm making plans for my girls that don't include much heat.  Like going to the library. 

I say that Idaho taunts me because they are still wearing long pants and sweat shirts in the morning and at night.  It hasn't gotten up past 80 as far as I know.  We are planning our vacation and so I'm getting a little homesick and the nice weather back home isn't helping.

Sorry about my tangent.  I've been up for a while, still feel really tired and when I sat down to write this, this is all that I could come up with.

Don't get me wrong I like Oklahoma.  The people are great and it is pretty even without mountains.  I just needed to vent about the heat and now I'll be fine.

I hope you all have a great day.  If you are going outside please drink lots of water and be careful.

Bike riding confidence

 We went for another bike ride/walk today.  I didn't jog but just walked with her.  She had a smile on her face when I pushed the button but in the split second it turned to a "" face.  She had fun.  We went past some of the new houses in the neighborhood and just working on building her confidence.  She seems to have lost most of it since Tuesday's ride.  She really struggles with drive ways and getting on and off the sidewalk.

 Yana is just too cute not to take a picture of her too.

 There she goes.  Having fun.

 She loves having her picture taken.

We stopped at the park on the way back and they played on the swings.  It was a good walk but it was so hot by the time we got home.

 I hope you all have a great Friday and a great weekend.  I'll see y'll on Monday.

Rain and random thoughts

I love Rain.  Random I know but I do and right now it is raining.  I've been hoping for it all week.  Everyday I wake up and it is cloudy and I think maybe it will rain today and then it is just windy.  I love the sound of it.  Home in Idaho I love the smell of it.  If it hasn't rained in a while and there is a lot of dust when it starts to rain.  Do you know that smell?  I love it.  I'm weird that way.  I also love the smell of spud cellars.

Anyway, you'd be proud of me.  Yesterday I spent most of the day in my sewing room sewing strips of material together and then when that was done I cut a lot of material.  I'm not done cutting but last night after Young Women's I brought down what I have and laid it on the floor and started pinning.  It is going to look really cool.  I can't show pictures yet because this is a gift to someone who might read my blog.  I can share pictures in about a month.  I know, I know that is so far away to be waiting for a picture.  It will be worth it. 

I love sewing quilts.  I just need to make more of them.  I told you a while ago that I bought froggy material to make a quilt and it is still sitting in the bag upstairs in my sewing room.  I plan on starting it when we get back from our vacation later.  I'll keep you posted on that.

On a side note does anyone know where I can find instructions for a really old Singer sewing machine.  I kind of inherited one and other than a tune up I can't even figure out how to load the bobbin.  I've tried a lot of different things and it doesn't seem to like me.  I thought if I could find something online then maybe I would have to have it tuned.

Well I need to get back to work.  If I work hard today I should have the top of the quilt (minus the boarders) sewn together.  That is my goal.  I wont it to the point that I can sandwich it this weekend so next week I can start free motion stitching it.

Have a great day.  I hope it rains wherever you are if you need the rain like we do.

Projects

My husband and I have gotten into a pretty good habit at nights.  We used to sit around with not a lot to do and be somewhat bored.  Now with his tools and the nice weather we spend a lot of time in the garage or in the back yard.  Then around 9-10 we come in and sit down for an hour or so before we go to bed.  Granted this doesn't happen every day of the week but good amount of our evenings we spend working on projects.

 This project is pretty cool.  I didn't think to take pictures of how it looked before he added to it.  Basically between the black legs there was nothing  but air and useless space.  So he added the peg board on three sides so he can hang things if he wants and then he built three drawers to go in it.  This is the front view.

 He made the  top drawer to have several different holders.  It is nice and works smoothly.  It also helps him to organize his tools and toys taking up space in the garage.

 This was last nights activity.  We didn't really like where that shed was at.  It was there when we bought the house.  We thought about moving it back and to the right but decided to take it almost directly to the left closer the fence.

 This is the spot we marked off for it.  We left enough space between the fence so we could mow and find any lost balls from either our girls or our neighbors children.

 So what is the plan you may be asking yourself.  PUSH and PUSH hard.  Ya that is pretty much it.  We slid the shed (after we emptied it, of course) off the base as you can see here.  Even though it was heavy once it hit the grass it became a bugger to push.

 Then we took apart the base and relocated it.  Sorry I was busy and didn't have time to take pictures of every step.  We were running out of sun light.  This pictures was actually taken this morning.  After the base was moved and put where we wanted then we pushed the shed over to it.  While my husband used a shovel to lift the corners I pushed 2x4's under it  and one in the middle in order to create a ramp.  Then we pushed and up it went and then we just had to align everything and screw it back down.  Then we put everything back in with the help of a flash light and came in the house.

That is where it used to sit.  We still aren't sure what to do there.  We are thinking new grass or sand box for the girls.  Who knows.

You may be wondering why we would move the shed to begin with.  Well it sat right in the middle of the yard and we couldn't see the girls if they were playing behind it.  Now it is next to the fence and we have a huge yard (or at least it seems bigger).

Well that was our Tuesday night.  I hope that you had an enjoyable time.  At dinner I found out that I really only have like 2 weeks left to finish a queen size quilt that I have have been somewhat working on.  So now  I need to plan it out and get it done.  I'll try to keep you posted around cutting material and sewing blocks together.  I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday.

A good life

How was your weekend?  Hows was good.  Thinking back I don't actually remember everything we did.  My husband only worked half a day Friday and we spent the rest of the day out in about.  We looked at boats, bought a fishing pole for my husband, took the girls to see "Madagascar 3" (which is really cute).  We planned where we would be moving our shed, swam in the pool, got Sarah addicted to riding her "big girl" bike and just enjoyed the time together.

The weather here has been nice compared to last June.  The evenings are wonderful.  We are spending a lot of our evenings out side just enjoying the cool breeze and the nice weather.  My girls are so full of energy and I'm trying to keep up. 

Monday I officially passed into the second trimester and am doing good.  The baby is wiggly; according to an ultrasound Friday.  I'm not as tired as I was but still tired.  I've been spending more time in my sewing room and have had a request for two more purses.  I've been reading when I can and playing with my girls when I can.

There never seems to be enough hours in the day but at the same time I'm out of energy by the girl's bedtime.  Right now things are going really well and we are just loving and enjoying life.  Well,  I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow.  I need to get in the sewing room now so I can spend nap time working on a quilt I need to get finished.

Have a great afternoon.

Life

Last week was a very busy and event filled week.  Sarah started swim lessons on Monday and went every day except Friday.  She loves it.

 She is also taking them this week but they end Thursday.  She loves to swim and is quite the little fish.

 Here she is swimming practicing her strokes.

 I think I mentioned a couple weeks ago that we bought a pool for out back and my girls would live in it if they could.  We had had a long day and decided to rest and let the girls play in the pool.  So Josh joined them.

 Yana loves having her picture taken and would walk around the edge and stop for her pictures.

 Sarah and Yana are just too cute not to take pictures.

 Oh how tiring it is to walk in a circle of water.  She is so silly.

 Sarah is practicing swimming under water.  She is getting pretty good at it.  She just needs to learn to hold her breath longer.

 Ok so the ball actually says not a flotation device and not to use on water.  Knowing this I waiting until Josh was home to try this.  We put Sarah in the ball and wanted her to roll it like a gerble on the wate but she wouldn't do it.  So we took it out of the pool.

Friday we started building our back fence.  My husband dug the first hole and then I dug the next.  We poured cement and then went swimming (The above pictures.)  Saturday we finished the fence.  I dug 3 more holes and helped screw in the slats.  It looks really nice but I don't have a picture right now and am too lazy to go take one.  I'll take one and share it another day.    I hope you all had a great weekend and have a wonderful week ahead.

Wednesday

It is Wednesday and it really isn't any different from any other day except for one thing.  Today my garage door decided to let me know that it doesn't like me.  When we bought the house we could see that the top panel was slightly bent but it worked just fine.  Well today when trying to park in the garage I didn't pull in far enough and it stopped on my bumper and then went back up.  Then it wouldn't go back down no matter what I tried.  It bent and crumpled a little.  I had to call the garage door people and it was so nice because they didn't think he was going to be able to come until tomorrow and he came within 30 minutes. 

Turns out he didn't install this garage door.  The past owner must have bought it at Lowe's or something and traded out the doors.  The garage door guy helped me get the door to close and is going to come back Friday to replace the door.  I feel so blessed that he came when he did because I was starting to worry about a night with the door open. 

Other than that not much happening today.  I didn't make it to the sewing room because of the garage door issue but it has been a good day so far.

Have a great hump day.

Memorial Day BBQ

This weekend was a good one.  We got a lot done.  We finished power washing our fence and got it weather proofed.  It looks much better now.  We also got several of my husbands projects in the garage finished and then we cleaned and organized the garage so are vehicles will fit in it again.  We went swimming at the pool when it opened on Saturday and then we had a great BBQ with good friends on Monday.

Two families that we have known since before moving here to Oklahoma are moving again so it was our last BBQ here.  We decided at the last minute to buy a pool for the kids and they had a blast.  There was a lot of good food and great company.  None of the kids wanted to get out of the pool even though they were shivering and had blue lips. 

 Yana didn't like the cold water so she wouldn't stay in it at first.  Eventually my husband got in and walked around with her and she had a blast and didn't want to get out.  We had a lot of fun and will miss our friends a lot.

 These are just some random pictures from the last few days.  Sarah put her dad's socks on and then gangster posed for a picture.  She is so silly.

She got this doll the Christmas before last and very rarely played with it.  I am happy to say that it is now one of her favorites and she plays with it all the time.

I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend with friends and family.  I hope it was safe as well.  Have a great Tuesday.

Pregnant and running

Pregnant and running.  Well I wanted to run while I was pregnant with Yana but I was so tired I couldn't get myself to do so.  This time I have been biking and ran here and there but it had been over a week and I was starting to think to myself that I just should let it be until after the baby comes.  So instead of biking last night I decided to run with the thought that if I only ran for 5 minutes and then grabbed the bike at least I would have tried.  Well I ran and I ran and I ran and it felt great.  It was awesome.  I'm slower than I was before because I was tired and hadn't ran in over a week possibly 2 but It felt great anyways. 

It gave me the determination to keep doing this.  I don't care if I run barely faster than I can walk while I'm pregnant I will keep running.  Today I will ride my bike and tomorrow I'll run again.  It felt great and I feel wonderful this morning.  A little tired but not bad.

I hope that you have a wonderful memorial weekend.  I'm gonna sign my daughter up for swimming lessons today and I'm so excited.  She is getting so big.  I haven't even had the heart to tell her that her best friend is moving in less than a week.    Well we are going to have a great weekend.

AWOL

Sorry I have been AWOL lately.  I haven't felt very good all week.  I wake up feeling ok and then as the day goes on I start to feel worse and worse.  I don't know if it is normal morning sickness or if it is because I'm so congested.  I didn't have bad morning sickness with either of my girls.  I seemed to have gotten my husband sick as well.  He has completely different symptoms and when we took him to the doctor they couldn't find anything so they just threw a z-pack at it.  Tomorrow is my first doctor's appointment.  I'm hoping my doctor can come up with something better.

My girls ran through the sprinkler yesterday.  It was cute.  Sarah had a blast and ran right in but then Yana would only get close enough for her legs to get wet.  She just wouldn't run in and since I don't feel good and my husband doesn't feel good neither of us ran through the sprinkler with the girls.  We just sat and watched.

Well I'm gonna relax.  Have a good night.  I'm hoping to feel better soon and I'll get back on the "blog" wagon.

This last weekend was good

I have a friend who is moving at the end of the month and is due with her 4th girl at the end of August.  I threw her a baby shower Saturday and it was a lot of fun.  I also made the cake and this is how it looked.

 I made three white cake mixes and left one white and used purple and pink food coloring on the other two cake mixes.  Then I used a checkerboard pan set that I bought a while back.  It has rings that you set in the pan and pour the different colors.

 Then I stacked the cakes and started frosting them.

 I decided to use purple and white frosting on the top of everything.

 This is what it looked like when cut.  The box shows the colors in solid squares not slanted like this but we thought it looked cool and it tasted really good.

This is the gift table.  We just put balloons on it to add decorations.

We played a few games.  The first was one where you put a paper plate on your head and then draw a picture of a baby.  It was pretty funny.  It is hard to draw when you can't see.  The next game was the guess the mother's waist size and then we ended with a memory game.  I brought out a tray with 9 baby items and they had a few seconds to look before I removed it from the room and they had to right the list.  It was fun.  There was a lot of visiting and it was so much fun.

My husband was awesome and kept Sarah entertained in the garage the entire time.

Then Sunday we Mother's Day.  I hope that you all had a wonderful day.  My husband made me a jewelry holder that hangs on the wall.  It is awesome.  I love my family. 

Caving

This last Friday was flex day and quite a day.  In my ward(church) I was called to serve in the young woman's program.  We meet every Wednesday and every Sunday.  We have fun activities that help us learn and grow and are hopefully fun.  Well every year there is also girls camp.  Here it is in June.  As you get older in the young women program you also advance in the stages or levels.  The same goes for girls camp.  There are levels and each level has certain things they are supposed to certify for.  Like building fires and putting them out, CPR, first aid, and many other things.  They are supposed to build on top of each level.  Here they want you to have all the certification done before camp in June.

So this year we decided to have a camp out and try to get it all done during that camp out.  So we decided to go to Alabaster Caverns State Park in Western Oklahoma.  They have caves to go through and we have a Sister in the ward who knows them very well who offered to take us through them.

Some of the girls didn't have school Friday but most did so they had to wait for the girls to get out of school before getting on the road.  It is a 4 hour drive and they had a couple of stops to make on the way.  They figured that we wouldn't get to the camp ground until about 11 pm.  So we opted to have my family take whatever tents needed to go brought to our house.  We left Friday around 10 am and found a camp ground that we liked that would hold the 4 tents.  I say 4 because although we had 15 girls go on this trip they wouldn't be sleeping in tents.  They slept in a cave.  The cave wouldn't only hold so many and since I took my children and so did the other leaders we opted for tents to let the girls have the cave.

 We got there and set up.  Here are two of the tents that I set up.  The one on the left held a leader and her daughter.  The one on the right held a leader, her husband and their daughter.  If you notice the pole in the back ground than you did better than I did.  For all my camping I don't think I've ever camped somewhere where there was a light pole in the camp ground and I set up their tents right under the light.  The one on the left was protected because it was under a tree and the other one...well lets just say I offered to move it when they got here.  The other thing about the tent on the right is that they woke up in the middle of the night wight a scorpion in their tent.  They joked about how much I must not like them to set up their tent under the light and on top of a scorpion nest.  I felt horrible.  They survived and the adventure was just beginning.

 Here is the camp before anyone else got here.

 Here is our spare tent that we set up for another family that was coming.

 There is our tent and Yana sitting on the picnic table.

 This is the creek that ran right next to our camp.

This is the camp kitchen we got for Christmas and we just had to use it.  We were so excited and boy was it great to have.

 The other nice thing is that there was a swing set in camp so it came in handy with the little kids.  My girls practically lived on them.

 I did say caving right?  Well the first cave we went to was called Hoe Handle cave and it was really muddy.  I made sure to mention muddy right.  We practically spent the entire cave crawling in mud.  I guess it was muddier than normal.  It was still fun.  I took my hard hat off for the picture.

We went through two caves.  The first one was a beginner cave of sorts.  It helped us determine who shouldn't go through the next cave.  After the first cave we came back to came, grabbed a snack and hiked up to the next cave.  It was quite the hike and loads of fun.  This cave wasn't muddy at all and it had a lot of climbing and narrow spots and one particularly fun spot where we had to swim in very cold water.  The water was only about 1.5 foot deep but the hole was only about 2 feet.  So we to crawl which was hard so it was one person at a time and when it was my turn I just lifted my feet and swam.  It was so much easier.  It was also a lot of fun.  When we made it out of that cave we took a long hike around to see more pretty scenery.

It was a lot of fun.  After the caving was all over we ate and packed up camp.  My husband and the other guys in camp had pretty much taken down most of camp by the time we got back.  So it was a matter showering.  First you had to go to the field house and rinse the mud off your clothes and then you could go to the actual showers.  It was kind of odd.  You showered but they didn't want you getting dressed in the showers because of how many people needed to use them so you showered and wrapped up in the towel.  Then you stepped out the door, grabbed your bag and walked around the building to bathrooms to get dressed.  Talk about uncomfortable.  We had a great time and I discovered that I really enjoy caving and I was very thankful for the hard hat because I hit my head so many times.  I hope you all had a great weekend.  We sure did.