A Renaissance Mom

Taming the Jungle

2009-05-06T14:13:00.000-07:00

We are s l o w l y trying to get control of the backyard. I let it all go this winter and now must pay the price. What a mess!

This is Fraser on the annual Easter Egg Hunt. See the mess of weeds behind him? They aren't there anymore! And I killed about 3,000 snails in the process. The dead grass is making me very mad. It all started when a relative of a guy that works in my husband's office building asked if he could barter some electrical work for a bankruptcy. Well, the lights and the fountain on the grass side of the yard haven't worked for three years, so I thought that this might be a great way to get them fixed. Why do barters never work out for us? He did come and replace the fountain pump. But he never came back to replace the light wiring. So what with Fraser digging up the pipes and me turning off the sprinklers to that section, we now have no grass. I am not very happy about it. Which is what my husband told the guy in his office. But has the electrician come this week! Needless to say, this guy isn't getting his bankruptcy done by us. Now I've got to find someone who will do electrical work for cheap so I can plant new grass. Before the landlord sees it would be nice!

On a happier topic and speaking of Easter, I love the color of these tulips that I used for the center of the table.

I love the bunny thing that is around the flowers. I found it at Marshalls. My kids think it's creepy. What do they know! And leave it to me to only have pictures of the table after we ate, er, devoured everything in sight. I forgot to take pictures of the clean, nicely set table. So you get dirty plates. Sorry!

I'll leave you with this picture of Grace and the plethora of peeps. I think they were reproducing on that tray! I certainly couldn't have bought that many.

By the way, they sat on this tray on top of the freezer for over a week. Then they were considered fit for consumption. Stale peeps are the best!

Our new bundle of joy

2009-04-30T18:27:00.000-07:00

This is our new 10 week old puppy. She is a Labrador/German Shepherd mix. We haven't named her yet. Ashley is rooting for CoCo. Or is it Cocoa? Bri and Chelsea don't like that. I think we will have to take a family vote tonight. Grace is so excited that she can barely contain herself. She cries when the puppy plays with the boys because she thinks that means the puppy doesn't like her.

Any name suggestions?

Victory Rolls for Grace

2009-04-28T19:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I watched a YouTube video that showed how to do a vintage hair style. Today, I tried it on my 3 year old. Doing a hairstyle on a three year old isn't exactly a smart thing to do. They don't sit still very well! But it turned out okay. I'm not too happy with the faux bang thing. But she's cute anyway! And, actually, getting her to stand still for a picture was way harder than for the hairstyle. These were the best I could get while she was dancing around.

Please ignore the peach yogurt that she spilled all over the front of her dress.

For some reason, Grace feels the need to purse her lips when someone takes her picture. I guess, it's her "model pose".

This is my favorite picture. I think she's trying to see if any of the baby praying mantis that we released here last week decided to stay around.

Wicked

2008-11-05T13:50:00.000-08:00

I bought our Wicked tickets today! We try to do a holiday outing every year. We don't always, but we try. This year we were debating between a weekend in San Francisco and seeing Teatro Zinzanni or staying home and seeing Wicked. Wicked won!

Now I have to outfit everyone which is no small task for all of us. I have all of Grace's outfit purchased; although, I think I will have to buy new shoes (again). Her newish black sparkly shoes are getting a bit tight, and in another month, I think it will be hopeless. As I just discovered polyvore (what an amazing waste of time!), here is Grace's Wicked outfit:

Wicked by mom4a2g

Don't you just love the cape and scotty dog purse? Thank you Gymboree!

Chelsea has her dress, but I think I'm going to end up making her a coat as we can't find anything that we love. Delaney wants to wear this plaid vest that we bought at Forever 21, but we can't find anything to go with it. So...it looks like I will need to make a dress or a skirt and top for her.

Children's Place took care of the boys' outfits except for shoes. They both picked ties and jackets. We did give them the option of sweaters, but they wanted to dress up. Such the young gentlemen!

Ashley and Brianna can take care of themselves. Are you both reading this? You are too old for me to dress anymore. Of course, they are probably glad for this as they both claim to have been permanently warped from me dressing them in matching outfits when they were little. But they were so cute!

The only thing I know that I am wearing for sure is my new red coat that I love. I might not have anything on underneath, but I will wear that coat!

2008-11-03T12:08:00.000-08:00

I guess I'm not very good at keeping up a blog! February was my last post? Really? OK, so I'll try to keep up a little better.

So instead of rehashing old stuff, let's just start fresh. Halloween! The costumes got finished in time. Thankfully! Grace was a mermaid. Grace has been talking about being a mermaid for months, so there was no other option.

Sorry for the red eye and blurriness. I got this new camera, and I can't find the stupid instructions. It's supposed to be better than my old camera (which someone stepped on and broke!), but I think I'm just camera illiterate.

Chelsea decided to be a lollipop and made this herself. Eric wanted to go as a cup of Starbucks coffee. So I drew the logo on posterboard and added fiberfill for the foam. So I guess he's really a latte! Fraser is a mad scientist; although, he got called a nerd and a geek. Chelsea's friend Lauren went as a Greek goddess.

Brianna and her fiancee, Michael, planned their costumes all year. They went as Max and a Wild Thing from the Maurice Sendak book, Where the Wild Things Are. They did a great job. I'm so proud!

That's it for costumes this year! Except I'm thinking about making American Indian costumes for the kids to wear to Pilgrim's Place this year. If I have time!

Off I go to plan my history and astronomy classes for tomorrow.

It's a sickness, I tell ya'

2008-02-27T15:11:00.000-08:00

I realized this past year that when I go to a program or show or even watch a movie, I automatically try to figure out how the costumes are made. So when I watch something at home, the remote control quite comes in handy. Rewind is truly an amazing invention. When I first saw "Meet the Robinson's" on dvd, I practically got carpal tunnel rewinding and pausing so I could study Franny Robinson's dresses. Just look at this!

And this?

Of course, cartoon characters aren't easy to translate into real life. You can draw shapes that just don't exist on real people. Seriously, who has a waist as tiny as Franny?

I've sketched out the two dresses pictured above, but have not attempted to actually make them. Some day I will find an excuse to try one!

An Apron For My Grandma

2008-02-23T15:30:00.000-08:00

My dear Grandma has Parkinson's. So when she eats she tends to drop bits on her lap. My Mother had made an apron back in the 70's sometime that my Grandma would wear during meals. It was very easy to get on--just slip your arms through the armholes and fasten the one button (or just drape over her back!). I wish I had a picture of it; it was quite bright to say the least--yellow, orange, pink. Not the type of fabric to match with too many things. And it was old! Threads fraying, don't pull on it too much or it will rip old! So thinking that someone really needs to make a new one, I laid it out on some white butcher paper and made a pattern of it.

So a while later during one of my ebay fabric browses, I found this very sweet print and thought it would be great to duplicate the old apron.

The finished product modeled by my lovely 15 year old daughter Chelsea:

(Chelsea was quite annoyed at being my model. Ha! I just posted it for the world to see! Ooo, I'll have to send this to all of her friends)

And the back:

Of course, I'm never satisfied unless I have to make things more difficult, so I decided to make it reversible. Thinking that red would be "too" red, I found a blue that was super close to the blue in the girl's dress and boy's shorts in the border print. It's not perfect, but pretty darn close!

(I think Chelsea's facial expression in this picture is saying, "Hurry up and get this over with.")

I sewed the border along the hem as a pocket with four sections. And I put a button on each side of the tab, so it can be buttoned on each side.

I gave it to my Grandma the day they left for home after their unexpected two week visit. She loved it. In fact my Mom called and said that it's already gotten a lot of use. And the old one is in the trash. Seriously, I don't think it could have made it through another wash!

Missing In Action

2008-02-21T16:09:00.000-08:00

I am still alive and kicking! I've just been too busy since Christmas doing to write about the doing. Just a few highlights:

I taught a Human Body class for my homeschool group. We covered the major body systems in one day!

That was one big femur! Unfortunately, I can't find any pictures of the cow heart dissection.

I also taught a sewing class. We made Valentine table runners. Three of the ladies had never sewn before. They were amazing, and their projects were fabulous. Again, unfortunately, I have no pictures of their projects. I have to remember to take pictures of things!

This is the one I made for my grandma before the class. (Ignore the badly-needs-repainting table.)

These are just a very few of the things I've been up to. I could go on about learning washing machine repair, the apron I made for my grandma, my mom and grandma's two week visit, etc, etc. I guess I just need to post regularly instead of waiting two months!

Polka-Dot Christmas Trees

2007-12-14T17:18:00.000-08:00

I wanted to try the soft tree pattern I found on little birds handmade. I already had the red felt. The only thing I had in enough quantity to make three trees was the little white pom-poms. So the result was polka-dot trees! I gave them as gifts to three of my friends when we met for coffee last night. I hope they enjoy the quirky little things. In poking around through all of my bins, I found a box of some old sequins that had a very few of these great silver snowflakes and white diamonds. So I will have to make one for myself with those. I also found a small stack of Christmas printed cotton--nothing fancy, but two very tiny trees might look cute with the one larger red felt. My kids think they look like hats, but what do they know!

Chicken Pie

2007-11-27T13:32:00.000-08:00

What to do with leftover chicken? Whenever we have rotisserie chicken from Costco or fried chicken from the grocery store for dinner, we always have leftovers. I know, you'd think in a family of 9, there would never be leftovers. But we do! And they usually end up at the back of the fridge until someone discovers them at which time they are in a state that is not conducive to eating. Then they become trash! I hate to throw out food. Did my parents threaten me with the starving children in Africa and India when I was little? I don't remember, but, I still hate throwing away food. So a few weeks ago I noticed that Costco's ready-made chicken pies were made with the above-mentioned rotisserie chicken. So I thought, "Ha, a way to use leftover rotisserie chicken. I will have to remember that!" Fast forward to last night, and I am staring at the refrigerator trying to figure out what to make for dinner. (I hate trying to figure out what to make for dinner!) I see the large amount of leftover fried chicken and realize that if it doesn't get eaten soon, it will have to be thrown out. I wonder, "Can I make a chicken pie with leftover fried chicken? Will it taste funny? " So as one who is always willing to try an experiment, I made a very tasty chicken pie with leftover fried chicken.

Next time, I will add a bit more gravy, but it was a success!

A Little Late Halloween

2007-11-16T13:32:00.000-08:00

This is for my mom who wasn't able to get the pictures that I emailed.

Grace is Boo from Monster's Inc.
Two days before Halloween, I tried talking her into Ariel, The Little Mermaid. That's an easy costume and one that I've made years ago for Ashley. (This isn't the best photo. It was scanned into my computer, and the pixels are way too big.)

But, no. Grace was determined to be Boo. So that meant coming up with a design and sewing all night! I wasn't too happy with the feet. They look okay, but they wore out very fast, and I had to hot glue them to her tennis shoes. I like costumes that last and can be played with all year. So I need to tinker with the foot design. Otherwise, I was pleased with the finished product.

Fraser is Luke Skywalker. The Luke Skywalker from The Return of the Jedi. I guess the color of his light saber was the determining factor for which movie he was from. And it had to be all black.

And Eric in his recurring Harry Potter theme is Severus Snape. Last year he was Ron Weasley.

So I'm done with costumes until next year. Oh, there's the kid's Christmas program to do. And the spring plays...

Pilgrim's Place

2007-11-12T17:38:00.000-08:00

Friday, we took the 4 younger kids to the annual Pilgrim Festival at Pilgrim Place, a retirement community for religious workers.

The kids loved the Mayflower ride.

And the face painting.

And the Cotton Candy.

I love the treasures I find.
Like this book from Norway.

And this plaid mohair blanket that was made in Scotland by the Hudson Bay Company.

And a Folkwear pattern for $1.00 .

And this sweater made in Wisconsin on imported Swedish looms. (The tag has a picture of a crazy Viking on it!)

And these plaid wool skirts. The red is a Pendleton and an authentic Cunningham tartan.

The older girls were busy and couldn't go on Friday, but Ashley was able to go with Delaney, Grace, and me on Saturday. Ashley found a bunch a music books. Can't wait till next year!

My First Post!

2007-11-12T15:15:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my blog. Everyone seems to have them now, so I thought I'd get on the bandwagon.

I hope you enjoy my small slice of life and the things that interest me.