Messy

Are we messier than your average family?  Maybe I let the kids do more messy things than average...

Some Cuteness

No crafts or recipes tonight, just some cuteness:)

Jayne bought the girls a jewelry set to share. Pnut loves the necklace, but she didn't like the earrings.  Pilly had them on, and she was quite enchanted with them.  She turned her head from side to side to feel them swing.

They are pretty funny with their jewelry:)  The necklace talks, but it only says one thing, and therefore, I cannot wait until the batteries are dead!

 Pnut drew us a picture on her chalkboard.  She always claims she does not know how to draw people, but we know that she does.  She only does it when she wants to!

My Dress

I don't know how much I have talked about my dress on here, but I was super-excited when I bought the material for it.  Back in September.  I can't remember when I cut the pieces out.  A while ago for sure.  I started putting it together in December when I was supposed to be working on my Christmas projects.  I do like to make life hard for myself.  So I finally finished the dress Saturday and wore it to church on Sunday.  Last week on Pilly's birthday, my mom showed me how to do the sleeves, and after that, it wasn't too challenging.  This was the first time I have done sleeves so it was a new experience!

I love the colors, the style, and how comfortable it was.  It is definitely a cold weather dress because of the heavy material, but it is just fun!  I didn't put the pockets on.  I liked the way it looked without them, and I was nervous about putting them on since it was a directional material!

I love the sleeves!  I gathered them a little tighter than I would again, but I think they are super-cute, and I was really pleased with them for a first try at sleeves!

Joel's mom and grandmother came up for the day Saturday to celebrate Pilly's, Joel's, and GG Glo's birthday.  They are all within one week.  Jayne made this cake for them: 

It was obviously made for Pilly with her love of penguins!  She was quite happy with it, and she devoured her piece.  First she ate all of the icing, and then she ate the cake.  You wouldn't have known that there was icing on there if you hadn't seen it!  I have never seen a cake so clean:)

We are gearing up for a busy week here!  It's almost time to welcome February and that means Valentine's Day!  I'm so excited!!!

Laine's Gift

I edited this post and put the correct website for the soap!

Laine's birthday was at the beginning of the month, and I finally got her present out to her on Saturday.  I had to wait for the soap I ordered from Etsy to come, and it was worth it.

I made her a twirly skirt, but I changed it so that there was no tie in it.  It was faster and easier, and I don't really like the ties.  They don't make it that much tighter, and theya re just a pain.  I loved her little purse as did the girls.  They were very disappointed when I wrapped it all up.

Edited:
 I also got her a soapsicle from Body Beautiful.  (Before I had Simply Suds, I bought something else from there one time and remembered the name better!)  Is that not the cutest thing?  It took a few days to make because each layer has to be done on a separate day so the colors don't mix.  I am totally going to bookmark this shop for Christmas stocking stuffers next year!

The girls would like new skirts themselves so that project will probably be coming up soon.  I am working to finish my dress that I have been working on F.O.R.E.V.E.R.

I also wanted to share this video.  It is great if you need a laugh!  Have a wonderful weekend:)

Bouncy Balls

Tonight it will be quick.  I am not feeling very inspired.  And I forgot to attach a photo to an email so I have to go do that. 

Carolyn got the girls bouncy ball kits for Christmas, and we made them together one day last week.  They are so cool.  I believe they were by Roseart.  They said 5+, but what do they know?!:)

Pnut's has an LED light inside and sparkles in with the little crystals.  Pilly's glows in the dark.  There was enough powder left over that they will each be able to make one more ball too.

These balls are really bouncy.  The dog is enjoying chasing them as well, but he can't have them because I'm pretty sure he would tear them apart, considering that it took him all of five minutes to destroy a new stuffed animal tonight.

Today is Joel's 25th birthday so we are the same age again.  Whew!  We had birthday cookie and enjoyed a nice little evening here at home!:)

Repurposed Pillowcase

So a few weeks ago I bought a new pad for my ironing board.  It is thick and I was so excited to put it on.  I came home, took off the cover and the towel I had serving as a pad, and after I put on the new pad, I tried to force my old cover on top.  Well, much to my dismay, I broke it.  Apparently, that is a twill cord, not stretchy elastic that runs through the edges.  So now I had a nice pad but no cover, and with no cover to speak of, the pad just slid around when I ironed.  Wonderful.  My Dozens of Ways to Repurpose a Pillowcase book has an ironing board cover in it, but it takes a body pillow pillowcase, which is hard to find, especially at the thrift store.  I actually bought two of them for 50 cents a piece without even realizing.  So I now (after all this rambling) present to you:

It is so bright and cheerful!  I really like it!  It only took about an hour, about 20 minutes of which was spent threading the elastic through the casing-yuck!

I want you to look closely at that dish in front of that puppy.  One of Java's chewies is in there, and Pilly jealously guarded it.  She wouldn't let him near it!  Her puppy was eating.  I bet Javs wishes he was that well taken care of!

Never mind, he went in the living room and got some love anyway!  Do you like that pouty face?  We are working on having a pretty heart and a sweet face instead of ugly heart.  Someday it will come, she is doing better.  It just takes diligence!

Hand Puppets

We made sock puppets.  Jayne got the girls a kit for Christmas.  We stuck to simple-snakes.

The girls really love them.  I end up putting them both on and making them talk to each other.  They want to put hair on their snakes, but we haven't gotten there yet.

Pilly is fascinated by her snake.  She can't take her eyes off it when it talks to her.  It makes me laugh.  I took video of her just absorbed by this snake.  By the way, yesterday was her second birthday.  How did this happen?

In case you didn't notice, this didn't post this morning.  I haven't gotten the posts set up for the week like I have the past two weeks so we might be back to posts at night.  I hope you are not too disappointed.  I might change my mind tomorrow though:)