Trying....

So this summer I had a brilliant idea, or thought I did.  Understanding that most children are messy, I have one child that seems to be extra, extra messy.  She has no concept of things belonging other than where ever she drops them and is always surprised when they are not under her nose when she looks for them.  So for this summer I moved her out of her room and put her in a small nook.  We moved all the toys out and it is just big enough for her mattress and a small area to stand in when she dresses, nothing else.  There is a light and I hung a curtain for privacy.   My hopes is that, by only allowing her to have one book to read, a blanket, a pillow, and one stuffed animal at a time it would help her to understand where things belong and to put them away.  She loves her small space and having "her own room".   But I am not sure it is helping with the messiness.   

Except her sister's room that she moved out of seems to be a lot cleaner, longer.  But her space is still messy, just on a smaller scale.  Sooo, maybe it is working.  She does have to clean it everyday or every other day.  And it doesn't seem to take her as long or be as big of a battle to get her to clean it.   I guess we will just have to wait and see.   

Lots of sewing going on here this summer.  I will post pix next.  We are also moving my sewing room into a slightly bigger room.  That is a HUGE undertaking!!  But we are almost done and I am very excited!!!  Can't wait to show of pix of that!

Joy-Nicole Bag

 A while back I found this free pattern for a bag at Fishsticksdisigns.  It is the Joy-Nicole bag.  I thought it was supper cute so I downloaded it and have since made lots of them!  This is my most recent.  It is a great one for birthday presents, especially for my older daughters' friends.  They need something to carry all their "stuff" in, but are getting more mature so a more mature bag is called for and this is perfect!
It makes up pretty quick and the instructions are very easy to follow.  I use some Ikea fabric I picked

 up a year or so ago.  This is great fabric!  Perfect for play clothes and bags because it is a little heavier but not stiff.  So it wears great.  I love the bright colors and fun animals.
I used the animal print for the front flap and back.  And used the stripes for the front because it would be covered up by the flap.    I used it for the handle and the inside also.  

The inside picture is a bit blurry.  I had Tessa snap a few shots of it before it got wrapped and gifted.  She was very jealous and wanted it for herself, but then, she wants everything I make for herself.  'Sigh' fans. 

Baby got new shoes!!!

When I say "baby" I mean me, by the way.  I am so excited about these shoes!!!!!  I found this site on-line.  They carry larger sizes and wide shoes.  (did I mention I have big feet)  So I found a pair of shoes I liked the look of that weren't too much and ordered them.  And they came today!!!  It was a lot quicker than I thought it would be! And they are wonderful!!!  They fit great and are so comfy and I LOVE the color!  RED!!!!  So I snapped a few pics so I could share them with everyone.  Behold the beauty!

Back in the saddle

So where have I been?  Not very far away.  In the middle of Nov. I totally racked my knee playing volleyball.  I couldn't drive for 6 weeks, then I had 4 weeks of very painful physical therapy.  I know it is less evasive and all, but at least when you have surgery they give you drugs and are kind and careful of you.  Not so with P.T.  They set out to make you HURT! and do it again and again.  I have never breathed so hard in my whole life!!  So my sewing for a few months was bare bones.  I got Christmas dresses done only because I had planned ahead and had them mostly done before I got hurt.  Then it took me the next 4 weeks to make the jammies.  But I got it done.  (Did I mention my husband had to go to Italy two weeks before Christmas at this time.?  I couldn't drive and I was suppose to go with him, but I didn't because my knee was non-functional.)  
But I jumped right back into things as soon as I could and now I am in the thick of sewing for the upcoming summer.  I am really very excited for it all!  (really, I just want school to be over with so I can sleep in)

So here are the Christmas dresses.  They wanted to be all matchy-matchy.  So they picked out a pattern and I went to three different Joann's to get enough material.  I love crushed penne.  I did give them different ties.  And I had enough to make me one too.  I did use a different pattern for mine and I love the style.  I think I will make me another with something brighter for summer.

My plan is to be more diligent with putting up pictures and putting in a few pattern reviews, because I love ready others pattern reviews.  I have found several new patterns I want to try from others blogs.  But here are the girls in their Christmas dresses and I will go from there.

As you can see we had no snow.  The girls were really worried they wouldn't get to go skiing this season.  But we got lots later and they went up several times.  Even Erica got to go a couple of times and she loves going FAST!!   But she didn't love standing for any of these photos.  She just wanted to run around outside.
Stay tuned for more.

What I have been up to…

So I thought I would have a nice easy laid back summer this year.  No such luck.  I was gone for most of June and then August also, and July was just busy with sewing for my church youth trek.  Then school started and we got back to normal.  But we do have pictures and so I thought I would show you a bit of what I have been up to:

First, for Father’s Day we got Doug this great new camera from Cannon.  It is water-proof, shock-proof, and freeze-proof.  We have had a blast with it and have taken it everywhere.  We’ve gotten some great shots that we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get.  We took it on the river, twice and got some shots like this:

Splashing in the water and seeing the cool new rock towers everyone is building along side the river.  The first trip was great, the second, not so great.  We hit too many rocks the boat was unsaveable.  Thank goodness for the life vests because that was the only thing keeping us afloat by the end of the second trip.

Sara and Tessa got to spend June out in Iowa with my sister and her family.  Then when they came home they had a birthday and turned 12.  I can’t believe they are that old.  So I made them a little more grown up style of skirt.  It is a simple ITY knit skirt with a knit waist band.  I cut theirs out like you would a poodle skirt and sewed the waist band on.  I didn’t even hem it because it won't unravel.  Easy Peasy!!!  I even made one for myself.  Just bigger.  It is a great summer skirt.

Because they are now 12 they could go on the church youth trek activity.  Basically, they dressed up like pioneers and got dumped in the desert with hand carts and got to walk for 3 days.  Loads of fun!  I spent most of July sewing clothes for them and lots of others that went.  When they came back, they looked like they had been dragged across the desert.  It was funny.

We went to the Oregon coast for 9 days.  We took the camper and camped out.  It was a blast and a whole other post.  But a couple of highlights,  we went to Smith rock (of course) and it was pretty awsome!  Lots of great hikes and climbing.  Then the other have to see if you get out that way is the Peterson Rock garden in Redmond.  That was pretty incredible and it was all done by one guy!

Erica started pre-school after the girls started school.  Here is her first day picture.  She is pretty excited and loves going!!

 

 

 

 

 

Also because we have this great new camera, we now have lots of pictures like these ones.  Lots of underwater shots with friends at the pool and lot s random shots of what ever they see, because we are less worried about them dropping it and so now they take shots to their hearts content!

What I have been up to… VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We went to the air show at Mountain Home Air Force Base and saw the Thunderbirds.  We saw them a couple of years ago and this show was just a good!  Some shots were great, like these ones and some like the next , weren’t.  It’s tricky timing when taking pictures of moving objects that are moving faster than sound. 

Amber had a birthday and turned 9.  It was not my idea to have her walk down the stairs blindfolded!  But the frosting was.    And it is very Amber!

What I have been up to… VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Then this past week my brother and his family and my mom came out.  .  Troy and Jen were at a conference for work, so his two little ones hung out with Erica and I and my mom for 2 days.  It was lots of fun to have friends to play with.  So my mom and I spent the time sewing.  We got a few things cut out and sewed for my aunt and I had to make a dress for Avery.   (She is my biggest fan!)  I made a matchy one for Erica while I was at it.  The colors are perfect for fall!  I also made Karter a jumper with some Diego material I just happened to have.  I didn’t get a picture of him in it.  I wish I did, but it was so cute and he loved it!!! He so into Dora and Diego right now.  It was lucky I had that material, I don’t usually have boy material on hand.  It was fun having them visit.  We took pictures of the girls after church, but by the time we got all the kids in there Erica was done.  What can you do.

So that is what I have been up to.  Just life, but still sewing.  I am hopping to get into more of a routine with the kids in school and get some more sewing done.  I will also post a picture of a dress I made for MYSELF!!!  Very excited about that!

First day of school, again...

So here it is...the first day of school, again.  This time it is all kinds of newness.  I have 2 going into jr. high. Scary!!!  Then the other 2 will start a new school also, because Clara is in the full time gifted and talented program and we sent Amber with her to make sure she gets where she should be and not just wonder off with a new friend.   I can't believe I have kids in jr. high!!!  I'm not sure I am ready for this.  But they said they had a great day!!!  Now if only we can get Amber and Clara on a bus so I don't have to drive them and we will all be happy!!!

Tessa is sure she is going to be cold.  It was a 100 degrees today and she still wanted a jacket, "just in case"!

Erica just got up and wanted to be apart of the picture.   She starts pre-school in a couple of weeks.  Yeah!  We hope you all have a great first day!!!

Life in a nut shell...

So lots has happened since I last posted.  It all kind of snowballed toward the end of school, and tho I have done lots of sewing, most of it was for other people who needed it done right then.  It seemed to come all at once, too.  So life just got away from me, as usual.  But here are a few pics of what was going on and then later I hope to show what I have been sewing.  Lots of fun stuff.

First we survived another year of t-ball and softball.  Just Clara and Amber played.  The other two were very involved with lots of other stuff and I am glad we didn't have to add their games to the list as well.  But it was a fun year with these two.  (I can't find a shot of Amber at the moment)

We got to go camping again this year with some friends at a favorite spot.  We really like Givens hot springs.  The weather has always seemed to cooperate with us and be nice, with rain coming down the day before and weeks after our spring campout.  We got the see a llama/alpaca there this time. (it's a mix alllama? llapaca?)  It was very friendly and the girls had fun petting it.

We went with our favorite camping friends.  They also have just girls, only 4, but we all have fun together.

We stopped and saw Shoshone falls again this spring. (different trip)  We even went up and saw the upper falls.  It was just as neat.  It is much higher than this picture looks and the water was gushing hard.

Lots of water this spring so the falls was very busy.  It was really sunny but because of all the mist it doesn't look like it in this photo.

And then a last shot of Sara with her viola.  She was part of the District Elementary Honor Orchestra this year.  She had extra lessons and practice seasons after school and then 3 evening concerts.  She really enjoyed doing it.   It was pretty amazing to hear them at the final concert.  They got to be apart of the city wide music week and preform at the final night for the "all schools music night".  It was so cool.  They had jr. high and high school honor orchestras and bands,  an all school choir, an honor jazz band, an elementary choir and then the Elem. honor orchestra.  I am very proud of Sara!

So hopefully, you see I haven't got lost, just caught up in it all.  I will post other pics soon.  Right now I am just enjoying a lull in all the hubbub.  Geesh, doesn't everyone know it is summer time.  This is suppose to be my relaxing, do nothing time.  Really!