when the boys go racing…

 

…the girls go crafting!

The boys had their biggest dirt bike race of the year last weekend (as in a week ago; I am late posting this), so the Dirtbike Wives, as we like to call ourselves, congregated at my parents’ house in the wilderness for some lounging, crafting, gabbing and face-stuffing.   This trip, it was just Leah, Kristel and myself.

But before we get to that, many of you who read Leah’s blog know she has moved to California.  :(  We miss our friends dearly already but we know they followed God’s lead in going there.  I have to show you how cute my late going-away present for Leah turned out…

I struggled to get a great photo, but you get the idea.  I had it strung across my window to see how it was going to work out because that is what she planned on doing with it, too!  I was supposed to make one for her going away party that she could take with her, but didn’t get to it, so I had her go with me to pick fabric and made it in time to give it to her on this dirtbike event she and Eric were flying back for.

She also commissioned mooched this off me…

That is a case for her MacBook (?) and it was sort of a pain.  On the end with the pleated charger pocket, I was dealing with nine layers, one of which was pleated!!!  It has a layer of thick fusible fleece fused to each of the four total inside and outside layers.  And the other end had a zipper which I have only recently mastered.  It is safe to say I will not be making these for the shop.

And then for some reason, (might have been the tears) I made her this out of the goodness of my heart…

Now, these little zippered pouches will end up on my Etsy shop soon!  I still have to make more of them, but I have camera straps and tea cup pin cushions ready to list very soon! 

Anyway, back to our weekend retreat.  It was not a total retreat, since we had the little boogers with us.  By the way, watch my daughter (the tiny one in the middle) in this picture story…

What is that you have there, Lucy? Hmmm…that looks neat.

 

I’ll take that!!

 

Oh, do you see something else that I might like?

 

Whoa, you’re right, I would like to have that!

 

Don’t worry, I got it.

 

Thanks, Luc.

 

Lucy: Mom, why do I always have to play with that Mean Girl?

Notice Susanna already having some kind of fit in the background.  My oh my is she different than her brother!?  That was basically the whole weekend.  Lucy is 4 months younger than Suzie but pretty much the same size or bigger, so I am hoping one day she’ll teach Susie a lesson if you know what I mean.  Aaron, start teaching her to wrestle.

They had some fun times together though…

Then poor Lucy had to go home and try to get some better sleep because she had been up all the first night with a croupy cough.  Now my kids both have it.  :(  They had already had it a few months ago and I didn’t think they would get it again.  Oh well, I’m still glad you guys came with us, Kristel!

Grandma treated Mark and Susie to a movie and popcorn, which was a big hit…

 

And they thoroughly enjoyed getting in the way of all our projects…

As far as the crafting, there was a little of this and a little of that…

A tutu was tied…

Should’ve gotten a finished shot!  Kristel did good – it turned out so cute and puffy, despite Susie getting her little fingers on it.

My goal for the weekend was to finish cutting all pieces for the remaining 38 star squares yet unfinished for my dang quilt…

I am elated to say I finished all cutting!  More on the quilt later in the week.

Leah didn’t bring any projects.  You would think she needed a vacation or something.  ;)  And when I tried to put her to work putting letters on her bunting, she decided she wanted them plain.  Funny how that works!  ;)

We all made this little project using paint chips, though; even Leah.  It is so simple you don’t even need words…

My mom shared the idea with me ahead of time, from here.  I went and got the paint chips (like, wayyy more than I needed, I realize now) and the girl at the check stand questioned me intensely.  I evaded getting arrested.  The link used Behr chips but any chips will work depending on the size of your egg and how you want your stripes.  I know this because I wanted Behr ones but went to Lowe’s.  Oops.  Valspar would have to work.  We used her Cricut to cut out the letters and a glue pen to add them to our eggs.

Anyway, that was our little retreat, and a sweet and quick little project you could get done before Easter and for free!  I should be back with some thrift store finds tomorrow!

beach getaway

 

Last week was spring break, so a BFF, Kristel,  and I headed up north on a road trip to Lummi Island.  We have friends there that are like family and it had been wayyy too long since we had seen them last.  Chris was my youth pastor in junior high and high school, and when my parents moved east right before my senior year, I lived with Chris and Tammy and their kids Eric and Emily so I could finish out my senior year at my school.  When I met the Logger, he began coming to my church and later Chris is the one who married us and we still attend the same church, though Chris and Tammy left about 3 years ago for Chris to become Senior pastor of a Village Missions church in need of pastoral leadership.  We miss them tons.  They are my ‘second family’.

Since we have crying babies, they made the wise decision to accommodate us in our own beach house for our overnight stay.  Some of their friends let us use it for free!  Thank you Jones family!  It was nice to have a place to put the kiddos down at night without putting one of our friends’ kids out of their room.  The little place was just adorable…

 

Nice great room, huh? 

The place had a nice mix of beachy accents and timeless pieces…

 

The two kiddos and I got to hog the master suite, which was serene…

There was also a nice little kitchen which we did have to use to make our movie popcorn…

Then there was the loft with beds and toys for the kids…

 

Toys which they hardly used because the view was so amazing…

 

Yes, right after I shot the picture, Susanna fell off the stool.   I get the bad Mom award.  Again.  I thought I was curbing my paranoia and letting them have some fun.  Wrong.

She recovered though…

But do you notice her eyes?  Ready for a tangent?  She started going cross-eyed a day or two before our trip, all of a sudden.  The day after we got back and I realized it was quickly becoming more and more frequent, I frantically made a pediatric eye care appointment for the next day.  Turns out, she has very extreme farsightedness which strains her eyes and causes her to cope by going cross-eyed, so she has to wear glasses now until at least puberty, when her eye muscles will strengthen and she will stop going cross-eyed.  My little baby!  The doc was shocked that Susie has reached her milestones early, despite her extreme vision challenge, and that once she learns to keep her glasses on she is likely to have a “developmental explosion” which I am not sure I am ready for!  Praise God that we caught it in time and that we can prevent permanent damage.  And for those of you expecting, or who have babies up to 1 year old, the clinic offers completely free checkups so that this kind of problem can be caught earlier on.  If this was ignored, she would have encountered permanent damage, so I recommend the checkup!  The clinic is Northwest Pediatric Eye Care in Bellevue.  Okay, done with my tangent.

Tammy and Mark and I braved the rain and took a walk on the beach…

 

 

I am always so fascinated with barnacles.  They are such stubborn little creatures, feasting while the tide is in and then closing up so snug and tight while the tide is out.  I kept wanting to keep one of these rocks but didn’t want to kill all the little guys.

I acquired quite the rock and shell collection…

And I did sacrifice one little barnacle that I couldn’t resist…

I was a bad blogger that didn’t take pics of us with our dear friends!  Photographing details is much less intrusive than always sticking a camera in someone’s face, but I do need to do it more often!  But at least I focused on enjoying time with them right?  That is what I am telling myself.  We got to gab, beach comb, have deep theological discussions, watch a movie and cook and eat together.  I used to babysit Emily- like, when she was a baby- and last week I taught her how to make Fettuccini Alfredo!  And Eric is like seven feet tall and sounds like a man.  I feel so old!

And one last thing - am I the only one who is a little nervous on ferry rides?  Maybe it is just the tiny ferry we have to take to this particular island..

It only fits two rows of cars on either side of the … whatever it is called where the captain drives.

It is not a long ferry ride…

But I still find myself planning ahead for how to get the kids out if we sink.  And I have seen that Mythbusters episode so I know to open the window to release the pressure (I usually do it as soon as we drive on).  It doesn’t help that I always seem to end up right in front.

Anyway, I am sure you have reached your fill for random vacation photos, so that’s the end of my story.  I spent 2 hours today disassembling one Ikea bed and assembling another.  Big changes coming in Susie’s room which is Susie & Mark’s room at the moment!  It won’t be ideal, but it will be functional and I will do my best to make it a pleasing space to be!

happy birthday to me

 

While checking the date paying my bills yesterday morning I realized it was my birthday!  I must be getting old. 

I was at Mom’s this weekend and she kept the kiddos when I left, so, being kidless and it being my birthday… I did what any responsible mother would do.  Retail therapy.

I finally got a chance to check out the Ruffles & Rust Square in the antique capital of the …state? …region?  …universe?  I don’t know but Snohomish has a plethora of antiques.

I wasn’t really looking for anything particular;  just basking in the euphoria of strolling downtown with no ankle-biters.  This is what I came away with…

Cute bags are always a good sign.  =)

 

Another white plate for something I am working on in the entry.  $3

A mattress spring for $3!  In the Farm Chicks Video two ladies said they got mattress springs and seemed like they had no idea why.  Well I have some ideas!  Um, also, I am the background of that video at 6:32 which is funny because that videographer was everywhere and I tried to avoid him like the plague.

And my last item from the shop was…

Some delicious burlap!  A genuine Colombian coffee bag, to be exact.  I have wanted something like this for a long time, to copy Pottery Barn’s burlap pillows, and thought I would have to wait till the next Farm Chicks sale, but Ruffles & Rust had them for $3!  PB’s Found Grain Sack Pillow Covers are $89!  Score!

Not bad for under $10 total.   I had heard R&R was expensive, but I found the prices to be in normal First-Street range, with most odds and ends at reasonable prices.  It doesn’t have the dime-a-dozen feel that the Farm Chicks Sale has, but if you need something now and can’t wait till Farm Chicks (or have some ‘birthday money’ to spend), I would recommend R&R.

I had $15 of my ‘miscellaneous’ budget for the week left, and I was still basking, so I continued on down the street and found this big old flower frog…

I passed up the $8 price tag the first time, but ended up seeing a bunch of tiny ones for up to $12 so I went back for this one.  I have wanted one of this type and size for a while now, to use for pencils on my desk.

Then it was time for a stroll through Target while I could actually hear myself think.  I told you this was retail therapy!  This is where it overflowed into the ‘it’s my birthday and I am on a roll’ budget department.

Found these on clearance…

I know, exciting, right?  I have been trying to get wooden spoons at thrift stores but they kinda gross me out.  Is that snobby? 

And then I got some new lamp shades for the bedroom.  The old ones were square and cheap looking and whenever we adjust the swing arm lamps the shades got all wonky and drove me nuts…

Much better.

And when I went to get four of the six white mugs that I needed at Fred Meyer, I found them to be on sale from $3.99 to $2.69.  I got all six instead.

These are really cute mugs, by the way.  They are just BIA open stock, but they have a little rim at the base which gives them the cute footed look, but it is wide so they are not tippy.  Very nice.  Now I won’t run out of mugs anymore!

So that is my birthday retail thereapy.  Have y’all been doing any retail therapy lately?

paint by numbers

 

Can you tell I have been keeping my agreement to work out every day?  Can you tell working out has replaced the time slot formerly occupied by blogging?  Bummer, I know, but I am being healthy and really trying to work blogging into a new time slot somewhere between bible study, working out, hygiene, cooking, cleaning, homeschool, cooking, cleaning, toddlers, cooking and cleaning.

So.  Paint by numbers!  I blogged last year about touring the Coastal Living Ultimate Beach House 2010, and noted that they had a couple paint by numbers in a hall bathroom that were darnright adorable.  Is “darnright” a word?  Anyway, I decided it was time to try one and see if I liked it / could handle it / could make one actually turn out good.  I had no success at finding a nice landscape paint by number set, which is what I was shooting for and what was in the Coastal Living house.  After a plethora of puppies and kittens and parrots and many long walks down craft store aisles, I finally found this mare and foal set that I thought I could do for Susie’s room…

Plus, it was very small (5x7) so I thought I might possibly actually be able to finish it.  Halfway done paint by numbers are not very attractive. 

Well I started in on it and it was more fun than I thought.  The paint has to dry in between applying different colors, so it was a nice little project for when I only had maybe ten minutes, but wanted to work on something creative.  It ended up taking me a couple weeks of doing  a little at a time, until it was finished.  I just left it out and worked at it when I could.  Here are some progress shots…

 

 

…and the finished work…

I was not thrilled with it at first… I thought it looked a little zebra-ish.  But I came to realize the cover example does, too, and it started growing on me.  Also, though, the colors on mine did no come out the same as the colors on the cover, so they won’t blend into Susie’s room as well, but I can go with it.  Here is a side by side of the cover and my results…

 

My colors feel a little darker, more moody and less sunny, but no one will know since they won’t be comparing the two once mine is framed, matted and on the wall.  One could certainly use their own paints and mix whatever colors they would like. 

If you are not artsy, don’t worry!  The set comes with everything you need including brush, paint, paint board, practice board and a sheet that shows all the spaces/numbers so that as you cover up stuff, you can still tell what color to fill in where. 

It was a fun process, and I highly recommend it if you like the look and, or, the process!  I certainly loved them in the Coastal Living house and there was a medieval nautical battle scene paint by number in a thrift store that I passed up, which still haunts me a little.  I might have to do some online searching and see if I can find any bigger landscape sets… or nautical scenes… or old barns… or…  what would you paint if you could cheat a masterpiece?