A visit with the cousins

Nothing could be better than a ice cream sandwich after a dip in the pool.

Upcycle 2

This time the victim, err, scraficial shirt was a green and white stripe Eddie Bauer *wrinkle free* number. This one was fraying on the wrist and had a small stain on the front. That didn't stop me from trying a dress for Lyla. I've seen a lot of patterns using the buttons (Made and Luv in the Mommyhood are two I like) and I thought that was a great idea to maximize the reuse of this shirt.

I used a pattern from the same book I used for her upcycled pants; this time picking a PJ dress. Turns out that I am not that sold on this pattern. I want to add a belt to make it a little less boxy but it would be fine for PJs - I just don't know if those buttons would bother my tummy sleeper.

PS yes, that is a bathtub faucet the shirt is hanging from in the top photo. We don't know why but it was here when I bought the house. Even after deconstructing the original deck and rebuilding the landing and stairs we retained the faucet. Just a little quirky to add to our yard!

Upcycling, my new crafting adventure

Tommy must think I have ADD. I can't seem to pick one craft and stick to it for any length of time. I guess I just like to have variety and today's flavor is denim!

Tommy played basketball for the William Jewell Cardinals. This lovely denim number was one of their team "dress up" shirts. Even though we love our Cardinals, it wasn't hard to part with this shirt, especially when its destiny was as pants for our sweet little girl.

Upcycling children's clothes has become my recent obsession. I've been trolling Etsy and several blogs lately learning the tricks of the trade. I bought a book at JoAnn using a 50% coupon with a 10% bonus coupon and picked any easy pattern to start. Positioning the pattern on the shirt was the trickiest part. I wanted to preserve the Cardinal logo and the pocket. It is going to be hard to keep these components as the kids grow (if I stick to this craft) because the pattern for 2-3 years old barely fit between the buttons and sleeve.

I had a little mishap when labeling the patterns. At least this wasn't the first scratch in the table. And knowing my kids, it won't be the last.

And now for the finished product:

My model is asleep so you'll just have to wait for a photo of her wearing them!

The logo ended up a little higher than I wanted but that is a lesson learned for next time. The pocket looks like it will be pretty usable but it will wrap around her leg pretty far. Lots of room for treasures!

This was such a fun project, I am lining up other old shirts for more! And stay tuned - baby booties are currently being constructed from the leftover denim fabric. Nothing is going to waste!

Paper. Worked.

It's official. All of our paperwork is final and every government agency under the sun has provided their stamp of approval. The waiting has begun.

Bitty Basketball

He's really no better at Bitty Basketball than he was at Bitty Soccer but we're going to keep trying to find something that he excels at. Maybe the next activity we should try should be musical or artistic or educational? What's your vote?

Silly Girl!

Going on a trip, to where you ask? Hopefully the sanity store!

Well, didn't make it there quite yet!

Safety First! By the way, she is strolling her rocks around, not babies, rocks.

Bites the dust!

Remember how much I dislike the house next door? Well, we thought it sold but found out that it actually only got officially foreclosed so I guess it did officially sell but to the bank. Last night we discovered that the house is cursed.

I've been bad mouthing the tree in front of the house for weeks. It drops sticks in a light breeze and it has these leaf/seed/fuzzy weird things that came down last week like it was loosing its leaves for fall. The kids drag those sticks everywhere, poking themselves in the process. And the leaf/seed/fuzzy weird things just get everywhere. Well, I guess I don't need to complain about the tree any longer.


The tree is in the city's easement so I am glad no one had to try and track down the bank.

Unfortunately the tree fell on two of our neighbors' cars. John's car was barely touched, it probably just has scratches. But under all those branches is Jeff's car, a really nice Infiniti. After the tree trimmers showed up and got the branches off, he discoverd it was only dented and scratched. Still not the best outcome but at least he could still drive it.

The kids LOVED watching the tree trimmers. They had a chainsaw and this huge crane on the back of their truck. Why? Why? Why? over and over was all I got during the hour they cleared the street. They ended up just piling the trees on the sidewalk on both sides of the street. They told us they'd already cleaned up three other trees this morning and were doing more this afternoon.

Funny, we didn't hardly hear the storm last night!

Raking in the Cash!

Saturday was the neighborhood yard sale extravaganza! I wanted to clean out the mounds of stuff from our basement so we decided to throw ourselves into the fray this year! We've never really had a successful yard sale in the past. When Tommy was moving out of Phil's old house in Prairie Village he had a sale where he actually lost money. The sign he bought to put out on the corner ended up being more money than he got from his one customer. The sale we had a few years back netted about $30 because we sold an old washer and dryer set (which, by the way, Tommy got the dryer for free).

This year the most fun was had by Steven and Lyla. Old toys were new again! I threw a bunch of old toys out on a sheet in the yard hoping someone might just want to take them but that only happened out of pity. One kind lady paid Steven 75 cents for two toy trucks and some other toy. He was excited to get MONEY to put in his piggy bank!

All in all, the sale was not very profitable in the dollar category (but we did get more than $50) but we did clean out the house and will be making a trip to donate the leftovers to charity (let it clog up someone else's house).

The one thing that amazes me is that people can rake in the thousands at yard sales, seriously? How do they do it?!?! Ok, maybe we didn't have that quantity of stuff and maybe not the marketing and maybe not the enthusiasm and maybe, well, that's just not our style!

Arghh, US Government!

We got our orphan petiton approved today but it has the wrong date on it. Instead of being received April 1, 2011 it says April 1, 2012. What a cruel April Fools joke!

Now we await word from our adoption agency on whether or not we can proceed with the incorrect date (there are actually two other dates on the approval that are more important than that date) or if we have to get a corrected form. The expiration date is approaching for some of our other documents so we are hoping this does not slow us down!