he's the pumpkin man and I'm his untalented wife

Earlier this we week carved our pumpkins. Christopher knocked out his perfect tick-tack-toe themed pumpkins in 40 minutes.

I had so many issues with mine that I ended up lying down on the deck with my hat covering my face, moaning and groaning. I meant to cut out the shape of the A, not the inside. I lost the top to the pumpkin. The whole thing is lopsided. 

I think I'll stick to eating pumpkin foods and stop trying to make pumpkin masterpieces.

A little pinspiration for your day

Pinned- Flower wall art

                                                                     Source: itsdoable.squarespace.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Mine:

   Sponsored by the paint departments of Home Depots across America

Pinned- Owl stuffed animal

                                                              Source: ashbyfamilyblog.blogspot.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Mine:

Made in my sewing class with Anna and Jill

(Found while perusing Pinterest and presented in honor of my recent crock pot/bacon tragedy.)

            Source: wanelo.com via Autumn on Pinterest

for once I managed to write a post without 5000 extra words

I took a stained glass class last week and made this ladybug bumblebee bug.

The end.

Do you know the pumpkin man?

before

after

washing machines require water, my hair needs dye, and other thoughts from the weekend

I wish I could say I spent the weekend showcasing to the world my brilliance and wit.

 

But I can’t.

Instead, I stood in our laundry room/pantry on Friday morning having a conversation with myself about the empty bottle of laundry detergent. I looked inside the bottle and thought to myself, “I wonder if the washing machine will be ok if I swish water around in this bottle to get out the last remaining bit of detergent then pour it in the machine. Will water ruin a washing machine?”

I mean really.

It’s a washing machine, for Pete’s sake. OF COURSE it’s ok if water is in it. I’d even go so far as to say water is a necessary part of a washing machine working properly. As soon as the words crossed my brain I vowed no one would hear about my momentary lack of intelligence, but here I am, telling the whole world. In my own defense, I was just trying to do doing everything possible to avoid flooding the house for the second time in one month.

 

In other news, on Saturday I finished knitting a bear hat for a baby. Obviously my Army bear is not the intended wearer, but he was the only model I had around. (After all, it’s not like a bear needs to wear a hat that looks like a bear.)

Something very tragic happened on Sunday. We were sitting in the church parking lot before Sunday school and I opened the visor mirror so I could apply my lip gloss. I leaned forward and SAW A GRAY HAIR. It wasn’t the whole strand of hair, just about an inch and a half long, BUT IT WAS GRAY. That make me forgot all about my lips because GRAY TODAY MEANS WHITE TOMORROW AND PERHAPS IT’S TIME TO START DYING MY HAIR OR BUYING WIGS. All Christopher did during this time was read about how the world is collapsing (aka the news) on his phone (heartless because clearly his wife’s world was collapsing around her ears) and suggest that I didn’t pull out all my grays because then I’d be bald. He didn’t even have a black marker on him so I could color that hair. You can imagine how much attention I paid to the Sunday school lesson. 

 

By the time we arrived at the park for our picnic date, I was somewhat calmer.

The gray hair isn't even visible in this picture. My ridiculously long arm is visible in three lenses but at this point I should probably pick my battles carefully.

we met at an art museum so it was only a matter of time before we created our own art

Joanna is coming to visit tomorrow! We are so excited. 

Our bathroom looked less than spectacular so we went out on the town (aka Kohls) to find some artwork. Joanna can't see our naked-walls bathroom.

We took things into our own hands and created our own art. We had some technical difficulties at first.

But then things started to take off,

 and they kept going.

 That's how we ended up with this classy masterpiece in our bathroom.

I know Joanna will be floored.

I wonder if she'd made a jellyfish look like me

On Monday I went  to the child care center on post to do observation hours for my early childhood education classes. One class I'm taking required me to "design and implement an activity with two children of the same age", so after much thought, researching and Pinteresting, I came up with a project that involved neither finger paint or construction paper. Anyone who has spent any amount of time in a preschool knows that those are their GO TO ingredients for crafts.

Without further delay I present the craft that made Christopher jealous that they don't do things like this at his school.  

A few weeks ago I packed pipe cleaners and styrofoam balls into my babysitting bag when I went to watch Amelia. We originally made flowers and butterflies, but in a stroke of brilliance I decided we should make people. This dude's name is Wesley. 

Amelia made a person also and very proudly showed me this creation.

Then she announced she named it Sarah and it looked just like me.

I'm not sure whether to be touched that she wanted to create me or disturbed that she thinks I look like that.

I think I'll go with the first one.

the loooooong day (subtitled: the day I stopped a flamingo from falling over)

Yesterday was one of those days when you think that SURELY it must be 5:30 already, but when you look at the clock it only says 12:15. It was a loooong day.

To start off, I had to wake up at dark o’thirty. Technically it was only 6:30, but I don’t enjoy rising when the first number on the clock isn’t a 7 or higher. I had to make my first batch of frosting for that evenings cake class. Making frosting is not something I really love doing at a normal time, so you can imagine the warm fuzzy feelings I had towards Crisco and vanilla flavoring at 6:42. As soon as I finished the frosting I had to leave for babysitting.

Normally Amelia and I will venture out to Pet Smart when we want a big adventure, but I needed to buy my friend a wedding gift and I didn't think she’d appreciate a new dog bowl or a hamster cage, so we went to Pier 1 instead.  Pier 1 isn't normally among the top 12 places to take a two year old, but she’s not Molly a wild child so I figured we’d give it a shot. I had built The Fancy Store up to being a very special place, so special that rule was we ONLY touch things with one finger. Things went surprisingly well. I think part of this has to do with my over-enthusiastic exclamations of “Have you EVER seen such a pretty napkin ring, Amelia? Do you see this monkey salt shaker??” to keep her attention. I guess I didn't need to be so enthusiastic because she found a green and blue broom that held her fascination for a good three minutes. I gave her a silk flower to hold and she alternated sweeping the floor with it and using it like a metal detector. Her flower broom found its way to a flamingo statue that she paused to look at before kissing it squaring on its beak. The flamingo was so shocked that he started teetering back and forth and I barely made it over in time to catch him from falling. Amelia gave me a look that clearly said, “What? Don’t you go around randomly kissing things at The Fancy Store? Not even that napkin ring you so enjoyed?”. By that time I had found what I was looking for and we exiting the store, triumphant in the knowledge that besides the flamingos heart breaking by our departure, we hadn't caused any damage.

I spent- and I wish I was exaggerating here- no less than three hours the afternoon making and coloring frosting. The kitchen was a disaster, the frosting on cake had crumbs in it, the sink was FULL of dishes, and I had frosting in my hair. I even put the sponge in the trash instead of in the sink. Finally I had everything cleaned up and my bag for class on the table so I could just grab it and go. I was carrying over the cake holder to put with the bag when I realized the cake wasn't even in it. It was still sitting on the counter. Can you imagine if I forgot to bring my cake to the cake decorating class?? I couldn't even say my dog ate it because we don’t have a dog! Like I said, looooong day.

Considering how my afternoon was, I wasn't expecting the class to go very well. It was the last class of Level 1 so we had a big decorating project and I was so nervous. Thankfully the whole thing went much better than expected (I had kept my expectations very very low), and I think my cake came out well! 

I was so happy to go bed last night. SO SO HAPPY. And this morning, I got up when the first number on the clock was A LOT higher than 7. 

cupcake class

This week in our cake class we decorated cupcakes. (Not to be confused with last week when we decorated a cake with a cupcake.)

I would like to point your attention to the cupcake at the top of the platter. Wilton calls with a "shaggy mum", but I call it a cupcake with a Cookie Monster wig. It really is the ugliest flower. The bottom cupcake was decorated differently that the others simply because I had no energy left in me to make another flower on wax paper then transfer to the cupcake. 

I had  a lot of trouble with this class so I'm glad I came home with one cupcake I like.

This cupcake is my pride and joy.

(The Cookie Monster cupcake is sort of the ugly duckling of the family.)

cupcake cake

This week in my decorating class we decorated a cake.

I almost didn't have a cake to decorate because my first cake completely fell apart after I took it out of the pan.Thankfully I had a second cake mix in the closet so I whipped that up and it came out of the oven no less than 10 minutes before I left for the class. I had some frosting issues that required me to remake that as well. In total, I used 4 pounds of sugar. 

I try not to think about my baking crises too much because when all is said and done, I think the cake is pretty cute!

wait til Cookie Monster sees these

I'm taking a cake decorating class! 

Our first class was Monday and we learned the finer arts of making icing stars on cookies. 

(Is that the technical name? Are they decorative peaks?)

My cookies are very sophisticated and intricate. 

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Is the suspense building?

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I like to think that the swirl is very geometrically correct. 

Christopher says the cookie on the left looks like a confederate flag. I assure you I didn't mean to do that.

If you need cookies for an event where you don't need to impress anyone, I'm your girl. ;)

In all seriousness, I was rather impressed with how well they turned out. 

'oh the places we live' map

As discussed previously on el bloggo (Have I ever mentioned I have my own version of Spanish? It's much more exciting than the real thing.) I mentioned that our anniversary gifts were paper related. Here's what I made Christopher.

The states we were born in, Georgia and Massachusetts, are in contrasting paper. I glued buttons to the states we've lived since we were married and have a whole bag of buttons for future moves. I hear Army people move a lot. 

If you happen to live in New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware or Washington DC, I apologize that the your portion of the country looks somewhat like a disformed claw. I had some technical difficulties in that region. 

I bought a wooden United States map at Toys R Us to use as a stencil. It was a labor of TRUE LOVE going in that store because I can't fully describe how much I dislike it there. It rattles my nerves to walk down the girls aisle and all the sudden have 200 dolls crying and laughing and making all sorts of unearthly noises while Hannah Montana states at me from an entirely too large poster. The boys aisles isn't much better. I don't even know what half the stuff in their part of the store is. It's all weird four-headed creatures that unfold from cars and speak alien languages. Not to mention that Justin Bieber is there and that's all I have to say about that.

Anyway.

It was so much fun making this gift and I was very pleased with how it turned out. Stay tuned for when I make an anniversary gift from coral or ivory. That's sure to be interesting. Hopefully whatever it ends up being will not require a trip to Toys R Us! 

Handy Man, Crafty Woman

Someday Crafts

the owls of Flip Flap Lane

After four weeks of intense cutting, pinning, stitching, and twirling around showing off ballet moves (that would be Anna), our sewing class finally finished our owls today.

They obligingly posed for us on the stairs. 

(left to right) Anna named her owl Olivia, mine is Macy, and Jillian's green owl is Sarah. I never had one owl named after me, let alone TWO (Olivia is my middle name), so I was very honored.

We decided they all live together in trees on Flip Flap Lane. When I move again, we'll write letters to each other telling what our owls are doing. I have a feeling my owl is going to be the most widely traveled of the trio!

Elizabeth and Signs

The parentals and I are driving up to get Elizabeth from school today! I haven't seen her since August so I'm very excited. With both my sister and my husband being away at school, I'm been without two of my very important people! 

I saw this sign a few months away and decided I'd try to recreate it to go with Elizabeth's Christmas gift. She loves signs and I love crafts so it was a match made in the aisles of Joann's. 

link  

It's not quite as beautiful as the sign above, but I was very happy with how it came out. I hope she likes it!

in keeping with our Fall tradition...

...we'd like to introduce Mr. Hugo T. Squash.

Occupation: butler

Relative: Lil' Dude the wanna-gansta pumpkin

sew sew sew

Yesterday was the first meeting of our new sewing club. Anna and Jillian's mother asked if I would pass on my sewing knowledge and, after assessing the piles of unfinished sewing projects around my house, I agreed. What's one more project when I already have so many going?

As the teacher, I am ashed to admit that the first class started late. I got lost getting to their house. Raise your hand if that doesn't surprise you in the least. 

For our first project, we sewed little sachets filled with potpourri. 

We're now preparing for our next project- a stuffed owl!

link

I'm also preparing proper directions to their house.

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Kelsey redid my blog this week! She did a wonderful job!! :-)

the spring chickens have finally hatched

I recently wrote about Elizabeth asking me to sew her a stuffed animal.
Having never sewn a stuffed animal before I wasn't sure how it would turn out.

 It is with a small bit of pride that I present to you...Spring Chicken. 

To give the chicken a little extra wow factor, I attached the above eyes with velcro so Elizabeth can change the eyes whenever she feels the mood is right.
 Just try to image a time when you've seen a chicken with so much sass.

I had fabric left over, so I made Spring Chicken Jr. 

I almost faint over the cuteness of this teeny tiny chicken.

Mama Spring Chicken and her little Spring Chicken Jr. go everywhere together.

You know what they say- birds of a feather flock together.

made with Sew mama Sew pattern

patriotic crafts

Over the last year I'm made quite a collection of patriotic crafts. 

Here are three of my favorites.

1. tissue paper heart

I found this craft when looking a something patriotic to make with Zachary and Molly, but I ended up being the only one to complete the craft. For some reason they thought the pool was more exciting than tissue paper. I just can't see why. ;-)

2. voting book

I LOVE voting. Voting was the #1 reason I looked forward to turning 18! I always take the 'I voted' stickers they hand out and instead of them just laying around collecting dust, I made a voting book to put them in. I think it will be so cool to look back at this book in a few years and see who I voted for! 

3. red,white, and blue cake

I made this cake last July. I was going to make a rainbow cake but didn't have enough pans, so I did red, white, and blue instead. Seeing how it was the 4th of July, those colors were more appropriate than rainbow colors! I used little green Army men and a flag to create Iwo Jima on the top.