Rainbow Parfait--Tweaker, for sure!

With St. Patrick's Day just past, I thought I would let you know about this creation I attempted, and flopped. It was SO ugly, I didn't bother taking a picture.  Just think purple/grey/greenish slime in a parfait cup!  Appetizing, right?! 

If, and it's a big if, I ever wanted to try this again, I would use yogurt as originally suggested, not the follow-up suggestion of vanilla pudding noted on Pinterest.  The pudding has yellow dye in it already which makes your colors not-so-pretty. Plus, when you mix the pudding up with the food coloring, it loses it's thick consistency; going rather watery, which makes the layers all run together into a very disgusting-looking dessert.

I couldn't even entice my youngest two to eat it with sprinkles on top.  So, we made them into smoothies so the ingredients wouldn't be wasted.  -SIGH-  Please let me know if any of you try it with yogurt!  I don't think I'll be able to bring myself to attempt it again.

 Here's a throwback to last year, just for fun!  My two little guys got to go look for "gold" at our city museum.

Reversible Handbag Tutorial--Keeper or Tweaker?

So, I've had some recent bad luck with some of the DIY projects I've pinned.  Either the instructions weren't clear enough, steps were missing, or my end result just did not turn out like it was supposed to.  As I'm sure many of you have had the same experiences, I thought I would let you know which works and which doesn't, and how to fix some of them so they DO turn out in the end. After all, no one wants to invest time and money into a creation that will be a flop.  So here's my first frustration and the tweaks you need to make sure yours don't turn out like mine--my first attempt, at least!  Here is my final product (cute, huh?):

My church group is doing a project for the parents in the cancer ward at Primary Children's Hospital.  I volunteered to do four bags.  The ladies in charge picked the cutest fabric!  Each baggie of fabric came with a printed copy of the tutorial from Chocolate on My Cranium, that you can find here. 

Since I was doing four bags, I decided to do them assembly-line-style where I did each step on each set of bag parts.  That went well until I got to the pocket part (see step #4).  I found the picture hard to see that she left a small opening at the bottom of the piece for turning the fabric inside out.  Yes, she does say to in her instructions, but I missed that detail first time through.  Lesson: read the instructions carefully so you don't have to unpick!

Second, and this is that part that needs tweaking on her tutorial IMO, she tells you to put the pocket at the top edge of the lining fabric.  Well, to be more clear, it should read:

Pin pocket to lining fabric centering it 1 1/2 inches from top edge OF THE 12 INCH SIDE. Make sure to pin it to the right side of the fabric! (picture #5)

Yes, I pinned and sewed all four of mine to the top of the long edge.  Grrrrrrr!!!  How I HATE unpicking!

And the final tweak has nothing to do with her tutorial, but the fact that I got this as a kit already cut.  Make sure your pieces are squared!  If not, you'll end up with puckers (little bunches and folds in the seam line) all around the opening of the bag.  You can't tell from this picture, but you can up close and that bugs me since I'm giving them away as a gift.

Overall, this is a great tutorial!  Once I got over the tweaker sections, this bag came together very easily.  Very do-able in about 2 hrs start-to-finish.  Happy Sewing!

Glitter Shoes and Another Turns EIGHT!

Man, will time ever slow down?!  I know it's asking too much for it to stop completely.  This little Ginny-girl is now not so little.  She turned 8 in January.

 She got to talk to Omi and Poppi on the phone right before presents.

 Here's my ever-growing clan eagerly awaiting birthday brownies (mmmm, brownies!).

 It's hard to tell in the photo here, but the brown material has little gold sequin-thingys all over it.  Kind of a pain to work with, but SO gorgeous I persevered.  One beautiful "poofy-poof" dress for the big day.

The shoes are some black patent leather ones from Payless that I mod-podged with gold glitter.  We couldn't find gold heels anywhere in our little valley in her size, so my neighbor Angie came to the rescue with this pin for DIY Glitter Shoes.  (I used the same process on her headband, but that will be another post!)

 We had SO many relatives come up and we thank you for the time and stress through the storm and accidents to make yourselves part of our special day!  This picture with Grandma Julie shows perfectly how joyful my sweet Pika-Lou was through it all.

 Da-Da-Pootie-Poo and Ginny Pika-Lou ready and waiting for her LDS baptism.

And I just had to put this one in as it shows off the spunkiness and joy that Ginny brings to our family. This tutu was what Ginny was wearing under her dress to make it "poofy-poof", as she described it.  When it was time to change later, she ran around the kitchen like this.  I made her stand still for a second or two to snap this.  She may not thank me later!

Testing, testing...

It's been a VERY long while since I was here.  Everything is different and I'm trying to figure out how to do this again.  :)  This is my fast-growing 3- and 5-year-old waiting happily for a pony ride at Baby Animal Days yesterday.  One of our favorite places is the Heritage Center here in Cache Valley; our family gets a membership every year.  This year they have old-timey tea parties every Friday that we are excited to try out!

This Man I Love

Adam gets up before the sun most days so he can get into the office to take care of things before clients start calling and needing him out on job sites. He spends most of every day out in the hot sun jogging (he usually never just walks) around getting surveying done. Then we see him around 6:30pm each day for dinner and time spent until bedtime is time spent playing with his kids. Motorcycle rides, wrestling on the front lawn, playing catch, pushing them on the swings, playing board games or video games. It's his down time and he spends it on them.

I know that I've told him how much it means to me that he makes time for them each day, but words don't express how deeply I feel it. The tender, loving, playfulness he shows to each of our children is indispensable. He is so deeply loved by each of them. Being able to watch his relationship unfold with each of our precious children has made me love this man so much more because of his dedication and sacrifice for each of us.

Somethings Don't Change

Like true friendship! Got a chance to visit with my best friends from long ago (ok, not that long ago, but some days it feels like it)--Cathy (Sorry, that's what you'll always be to me) and Monica, plus all their kids and mine.
We met at Draper Park and had lunch and treats and visited. It's been nine years since we saw each other last and it didn't feel that way one bit! It was a wonderful afternoon, the weather was great and the kids behaved themselves.

We had fourteen kids between us. They played on the playground, in the sprinklers, and then in the red dirt of the baseball field. It was great to swap kid and husband stories as well as little updates on "kids" from high school. Let's not wait so long next time, huh?

Everybody in the Pool

We decided it was time to finally set up the new pool the kids gave Adam for Father's Day. While we were getting outfitted to swim, a package showed up from Grandma and Papa. Fourth of July tees for all the kids! Don't we look cute--Stephen was headed for naptime, if you couldn't tell.

I wasn't prepared to have Stephen in the big pool, so we still set up the little one from last year.
This is what it looks like from the patio. Big enough for all plus a few friends. The water was still ice cold from being freshly filled, but they were determined to swim.
They even talked Adam, with very little difficulty, into getting in with them when he came home from work. Not as deep as it looked from the picture on the box as you can tell by Ne-ne standing up behind Sharra. The kids, and sometimes us adults, have spent part of every afternoon since in the pool--excluding Sundays.