Painting Pumpkins

We had some fun Monday night painting pumpkins. We had lots of the little pumpkins from the garden this year and once we picked them the kids just would not be satisfied until they were painted. We did not have enough little paint brushes so it was very slap stick, but we got to have fun together and make a big mess. Miah was pretty much up for the big mess.

The little pumpkins are hard to see, but its not hard to see the paint all over Miah.

We were lucky that paint didn't end up all over Cameron and Lilly's clothes, because by the end we all resorted to the finger painting.

Lilly ended up with the big brush and completely covered like four pumpkins.

Cake Decorating

I just completed my cake decorating class at Micheals. It was for one month and only four classes all together but I had a good time doing it. It wasn't much for the actual class but it did kind of cost a lot for the right equipment. So now that I have most of the stuff that I need I probably will practice my skills on my own instead of taking the other three classes.
I like being able to make cakes and I hope to get really good at it. So If you are looking for someone to make you a nice cake, keep me in mind. I will give you a good deal :)
I did the cupcakes in the third class and the best wishes cake in our last class. I wasn't very happy with the flowers and a couple other things on the flower cake but I know that I can work to improve on those. I did another cake in the second class that we had but I didn't get a picture of it. It is nice to practice these things and to get out of the house at the same time. I definitely need it. It gave me something to look foreword each week.
I will be doing another cake this weekend for our superbowl party and I hope it turns out alright. I will have to take some pictures of it when it is completed.

Another attempt in making dresses

 I wanted to make Christmas a little more special this year by making the girls their own christmas dresses. I was excited to get started on another project and to continue improving my limited skills in sewing. 

I bought some material that I thought would not be too Chirstmassy so that they could wear it more than once and found a pattern that I thought would be cute. 

This pattern looked cute on the girl on the cover of the pattern so I thought it would work. The patterns were a little courtryish but I thought that as long as I got material the was pretty and modern then it wouldn't look country. 

So I set about cuting out the material and trying to make sense of the directions on the pattern. No such luck. I begged my mom for help and to my utter satisfaction she came. She looked at it and helped me figure out what all the little pictures meant. I thought I had a pretty good idea about how to make the dress when she left. I also had to get more material and that is why she couldn't help me start on it when she was there. 

The next week I made the top of the dress and worked on making the pockets. I spent 2 full days just on two darn pockets just to later on find out that I put them on in the wrong spot. I was at a point the I did not now what to do next.

My mother saved the day again when I went over there to finishe things up. We worked on the bottom white ruffle then we got the skirt parts together, then we were trying to attach the skirt to the top but the thread kept breaking. Upset, I left and returned the next night with new and expensive thread that I accidentally got and paid for because there was a long line and I didn't want to have to wait any longer in that store.

So I was back at my parents house to finish the dress. The new thread was on and we tried again to gather the material and attach the top. Even with the darn expensive thread it would not work, the material was too thick. So My mother just sewed the gather on and we tried the dress on Lilly. 

I was horrified. The dress was way too big. Way too much fabric. It was like she was the top of this humungous tent. I did not want my mom to think I was upset so I was just like," I don't know." 

What to do, What to do? I could not take her to church like that. So, I worried about it and finally just told mom that we need to cut out some of the material. She agreed to let me do that and I proceeded to cut up each side of the dress and then pined the side to cut out about 5 inches of material on each side. Then I had to ripe out the pokets that I had spent two days on. We still could not finish the dress, but in all the bustle I took a pattern for a previous dress I had made for Lilly and used that for Miah's dress. There was no way that I was going to attempt the country dress again. 

Mom finished both dresses for me and the girls wore them on the Sunday before Christmas.   

Miah's dress fit her pretty well considering I had to cut the material a half inch short on all sides of the pattern pieces. 

She did look pretty cute.

Then there was Lilly. As much I did not want it to look country, there was just noe escaping it. It was as country a dress as ever I did see one. It did at least look a million times better than what it did before.

Well, I'd say that was another lesson learned. At least Lilly is so cute that she did not look that bad. 

I'd day that I will remember this Christmas for a long time. I will remeber how hard of a time that I had with that dress and that in the end you can not trust the picture that is on the cover. 

Salsa

So I got ambitious and afraid of wasting tomatoes from my garden, I decided to make some salsa. I was excited for that refreshing taste of home made delicious salsa, the kind that mom makes. I looked up on the computer how to make and can salsa and choose one that sounded alright. I just knew it had to have cilantro in it(I love the smell of cilantro).




So I pulled out as many ripe tomatoes as I could and got several from Katie's garden. I also bought some from the store and picked a day to get the job done.




Friday was my day. I followed the directions on how to peel the skins of the tomatoes and then core and seed them followed by chopping them. It was a long process but I was doing it. All by my self, no help, just me.




There is a certain satisfaction in doing something new and with your own hands. I really felt that, I did not imagine that I'd be doing this at least by myself, but here I was, hurray for me, I'm learning something new. I feel that it gives me a little more confidence in continuing to try things that I normally would not.




So I got through the 22 tomatoes that I had and it didn't even come to half of what I needed. The recipe called for 7 quarts of tomatoes and I think I had almost three quarts down. So I packed everyone up and went back to the store. I picked up about 24 more tomatoes and started the process all over again. My back was hurting and I was getting tired, but I could not back down now and there was no time to sit back and relax. I finished cutting up the tomatoes and realized that I still did not have enough tomatoes. So I added two more cans of diced tomatoes and only ended up being a quart and a half short.




I continued with the rest of the ingredients finishing up with the five jalapenos. I cut them in half and dug out the seeds with a spoon. I used the electrical chopper to chop it up( thinking it would be safer that way). I mixed everything up again and washed my hands real fast. I was in a hurry to get to Joseph's birthday party.




I took the pot of salsa with us to boil it and process it at Katie's house while getting the kids in the car. On the way my thumb started burning on the side of my nail. My first reaction was to suck on it to try and make it feel better, but the second I took my thumb out of my mouth, my tongue started burning. "That was real smart ," I thought to myself. I got to Katie's house and rushed the kids in. I related to story to Brenda , Katie's mother-in-law and she told me that I should try to soak my finger in a mixture of baking soda and water. I tried it and the burn went away the second I put it in the water. The relief only lasted for about 5 min and the burning returned. I continued to put ice on it for the rest of the night. The burning sensation continued to all of my fingers right at the cuticle and under my nails.




Man, I learned my lesson. I will use gloves next time I cut up jalapenos or be very, very careful to not get it all over my hands. Lesson learned.

Another dress

This is the dress that I am trying to make all on my own. Going off of the knowleged that I gained from my mom helping me out it is mostly done. I have finished the sleve and hemmed the bottom of the dress since this picture. At least I was able to make it that far all by myself.

I tryed working on it on Saturday and could not figure out how to thread the sewing machine. Lilly had also messed up the knobs on the surger and I had no idea what they were suposed to be set at. I realized that I did not pay close enough attention when mom was here and I was feeling the regret now. I looked up some videos online and kept working with it until I looked somewhat close to the stitch on the other dress.

All I have to do now is hem the collar and put in the brown and pink poke dot ribbon and the zipper. I have some to a place that I can go no further so I will have to give up my pride (being able to say that I did it all on my own) and go to mom for help. I will show the end result later. Lilly is excited though and so am I. I already feel like going to check out more patterns to find some more cute dress ideas.

New dress

So, I went to Walmart (of course) to find some material and a pattern to learn how to sew. I was thinking that I really needed a hobby and I really like learning knew things, (got that from my mom) so I decided I would do something about it. Too often do I say I am going to do something and just never do it. This time I was not going to procrastinate. I wanted to do.

I bought a $1 something pattern and $1 a yard fabic and wanted to get started. To bad when I decided I go ahead and do it myself, I just looked at the pattern pieces and tryed reading the pattern guide and was completely confused. I did not understand any of the sewing jargon. So I went to my mom (always there to help). We got together one night and put he thing together pretty fast. Actually it was mostly mom doing it because I was trying to get dinner ready and she wanted to get throught things( Dad doesn't like her staying out too late I think). I was fun but really I did not learn a whole lot. It was something though.
We didn't get to finish it the first night so we got together again and she finished it up for me. Thanks mom. It looks cute. Even better when it is on Lilly.
Not the greatest picture. Pretty blurry but I tell you what if Lilly could wear this dress every day she would be as happy as a school girl. It would be true for any dress for that matter. She would have loved being born in the pioneer time when all the girls wore dresses all the time. Well it did turn out well and Lilly was happy, I was happy and mom was happy. Its all good.

Wow, I can't believe it has been so long for me to do anything with my blog. I was consistently keeping up on it at least once a week and then I don't know what the deal was with me. I just didn't feel like it.

My Garden

So I started a garden this year. I tryed several different seeds but not all came up. As you can see there are only three groups of plants. I have my corn on the bottom, pumkin on the upper right and tomatoes and green peppers on upper left. I have a large space of plants but I did not want to waste a whole lot of food so I did small sections. I was suppose to have four rows of corn but only three good rows came up. I hope they will pollunate o.k.

I also had carrots and cumcumbers, squash, basil, cantelope and watermelon but none of those worked out.

I do not like trying to keep up on the weeding. Every day there are more and more. I just can't get myself out there everyday. There is a lot of that, so I usually enlist the help of my sisters. Corin has helped a lot with that.

The pumpkin is doing well so I will have extra of those I think. Same with the tomateos. I will enjoy actually having something I grew myself and hopefully things will be better next year in its variety.

Bathroom project

Before



After



So I tiled my bathroom. I got fed up with the lenoleium pulling away from the bath tub and the corners on the base boards being so far apart the calking wasn't able to cover the gap.

I was lucky that my sister happened to have the glue for the tile and the grout. So all I had to buy were the tiles which cost me about $30. Not bad for a tiling project. My mom helped me place the tiles down, Thank heavens. She is good at it and already had the tile cuter. I did the grout by myself one evening. Not too bad. It only took me about 3 hours. Very messy though. It was tough trying to do it with Miah trying to get into the bathroom every couple minutes.

Then a week and a half later my dad came by, while doug and I were on our spa date, and put in the base boards with his extra wood. He then went to the store and bought a new fill tank for the toilet, a wax ring, and calk. My mom and dad put the toilet back in with the new fill tank inserted and the wax ring and calked everything for me. I came home and was soooo impressed. I hate calking and that made me very happy. They also cut the door down a little because it would not fit with the tile in, and then they hung the door. I was jumping for joy to have my bathroom back and to be pretty much done with the project. All I have to do now is paint the base boards.

Thank you Mom and Dad. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

Now I enjoy not having to look at those ugly base boards.
Man it makes me think that some of those carpenter's just don't care about the quality of work they do to complete a house. They do just enough to say it is done. That is why our base boards look horrid in our bathrooms.