Oh no you didn't!

Remember this post about the quilt that I wanted to make?  Due to sickness, it was abandoned before Christmas, and I only started working on it again last week.  I thought the top would be finished with just a few more seams, and then I laid it out and noticed a problem.  Are you seeing what I'm seeing about a third of the way from the top?

Ahhhh!  What did I do?  It's totally messed up!  Upon further investigation, I think I made the top third of the quilt, took a break, turned the pattern over in the meantime, and came back and made the top section again, thinking it was the bottom.  Whoops!

The good news is that the pattern repeats so I can take off a couple of rows and it will meet up again or I could add a couple of rows (which is what I would opt to do, if I had more fabric, but unfortunately, I don't).

CURSES!

I hate to waste all of that work, but it looks like I have no choice!

He's becoming his own person

Creed is suddenly talking so much more.  My little parrot is teaching me the phrases that I must say a lot.  Two weeks ago he started putting one finger in the air and telling me, "A minute.  A minute."  I'm constantly saying that to him: I know you're hungry and your lunch will be ready in a minute, I'm on the phone with dad so I'll help you in just a minute, wait a minute before you get into the tub so I can get the water just right, etc.

The one that surprised me was when he started saying, "I mean it!"  What?  Since then I realize that if Creed ignores something that I say, I find myself saying things like, "It's time to go.  Go get your shoes . . . Creed, I mean it.  Go get your shoes."  Now if I don't do something he wants he tells me, " I mean it!"

And since he's saying so much more, we're finding out a lot more about what he wants.  Like yesterday when I put a shirt and jacket on him, but he refused to wear the pants I picked out.  Instead, he decided that he want to wear the chicken pants from the bottom of his chicken costume.  If that's what makes him happy, that's fine with me.  Besides, wouldn't that site at the grocery store make you smile?

And today, as we were digging through his toys, we found this bow-tie buried in there, and he had to wear it immediately.  And he did not want to take it off.  He wore it to the toy store, he wore it proudly through the library, he wore it to pick up dinner.
Where does he get his sense of style?  It's not like we dress like crazies. 

Oh wait, maybe we do.

Partying

I was in charge of decorating for a dinner at our church last night celebrate the Relief Society's birthday (the women's organization in our church).  There were two problems, one, it was held in a big gymnasium and two, I had pretty much no budget.

We had volunteers make round birthday cakes and we used them as the centerpieces on pretty cakeplates in the middle of each table
Then we made tiny Happy Birthday flags to stick in the rolls
And we made about a million tissue paper pom-poms and hung a group of them in a cluster above each table, and in a row above the serving tables.  I made them a couple of years ago for a baby shower and they are very easy to make but this job took a while since we needed A LOT.  Thanks to my friends who helped out!

A haircut makes the man

These pictures are about a month old, but it's never too late to post, right?  

Every time I take Creed to get his hair cut, I'm shocked by how old he looks afterward.  Why is it that when he has shaggy hair, he looks so much more like a baby?  It's not just me, Larry says that every time Creed gets a haircut, it makes Larry a little sad.

So here's Creed post haircut looking so grown up (I wish I would have taken a before photo so that you could see the difference).

PS- that spray bottle full of water has equaled hours of entertainment outside (and it had to be yellow, of course).

I want to be the kind of mom who . . .

I want to be the kind of mom who creates magical moments kids will remember for a lifetime.  I keep thinking about the book When Zachary Beaver Came to Town by Kimberly Willis Holt.  Every summer, the main character's best friend Cal's family holds a Ladybug Waltz.  They have a small farm and the order ladybugs as a form of natural pest control.  The whole family gathers in the field when the ladybugs arrive and they bring out an old record player and play classical music and dance in the fields as they let the ladybugs loose.  Ever since I read that I've wanted to have a ladybug waltz and it's not even very expensive to order live ladybugs!

I want to be the kind of mom who makes eating fun.  I love this idea from Family Fun to make mini carmel apples.  They bought normal apples and used a melon baller to make small apples and coated them with melted peanut butter or carmel chips.  Photo and more directions found here.  I've also been reading some books by Annabel Karmel for more ideas to get Creed to enjoys his meals and I highly recommend her books.

And speaking of making eating fun, this dad decorates bag for home lunch everyday, and I'm in love with them.  Wouldn't that be a fun thing to do for your kids or spouse?  He mostly paints robots and he calls them lunchbots.  Creed would go crazy for one of these.
I want to be the kind of mom who teaches kids about art in a non-judgmental sort of way and lets them decided what is or is not art and which art they like.  My this is on my mind because I reread Kiki Strike by Kirsten Miller the other day (which is fantastic and I think everyone should read it if they are looking for a fun, crazy adventure that will make them see the world in a different way), which got me thinking about the real graffiti artist Banksy.  Just in case you haven't herd of Banksy, you can read about him here or see his website here.  He's an English graffiti artist that causes all sorts of controversy.  His art is worth a fortune, but since most of it is illegal it often gets painted over.  His real identity is unknown but his work can be seen all over the world.  When I first heard about him, he was known for his paintings of rats like this one.

and this one.

And I really love this scene by him

He has snuck in and hung his own work in the Louvre, The Tate Britain, the Met, Moma and the American Museum of natural history and in some spots it is said the have hung for days before it was noticed (although his painting of the Mona Lisa with a huge yellow smiley face hanging in the Lovre was noticed and removed almost immediately).  I wouldn't say that I agree with everything that he does, but he fascinates me.

I want to be the kind of mom who plays with my kids instead of always watching them play, even if I make a fool of myself.  I love this mother daughter dance, although I have no idea what movie it's from!

I want to be the kind of mom who creates the room of my child's dreams that adults would also love to spend time in.  Which reminds me that I want to move into this nursery that I spotted on Ohdeedoh. I think yellow and aqua is my current favorite color combination.

And I dream of having a room like this one spotted on Ohdeedoh someday.
I want to be the kind of mom who creates a home with quirky character.  Someday we will be settled somewhere and I will not have to worry about a landlord or the immediate resale value of my home and I can do whatever I want with it.  I would have loved having this cool hole in the wall when I was little.

I want to be the kind of mom who helps her kids be organized.  I love this idea from blogger Stephmodo to use a sweater organizer hanging in the closet to set out outfits for the week, then the kids get to pick which outfits they want to wear each day so mom will be happy, but they still feel like they are choosing what they wear.

Easter is still far away, but . . .

While running errands today, I couldn't avoid going to the Dreaded Wal-Mart.  I couldn't find the things I needed anywhere else.  

Creed and I ended up walking up and down the rows of Easter goodies as I explained a bit about Easter.  Imagine my delight when I turned a corner and saw this: a beautiful, color-coordinated display.  If you have a child like mine who prefers all things to be his favorite color (in his case, yellow) then seeing all these perfectly matching treats together will give you visions of beautiful Easter baskets.  Granted some of the products were cheesy, but a lot of them were pretty.  How can you resist that cotton candy?

They even had a whole row of color-coordinated Easter grass

And each box had four different kind of Easter grass so you can find what you need whether it's the plastic grass or crinkled paper.

And to top it all off, they had loads of Cascarones!  Cascarones are eggshells will with confetti. It's a Mexican tradition to try to break them over your friends' heads said to bring good luck.  I've always thought it would be fun to include cacascarones in our moonlight-flashlight Easter egg hunt that we hold for our grown-up friends, but I've been too lazy to make them myself.  What a score!

Rainbow Bright

Remember making pasta necklaces back in kindergarten?  (Ok, I never actually got to do that because I went to kindergarten in the country in Tennessee where we weren't spoiled with such fantastic activities such as making jewelry out of noodles and we were also only allowed to whisper during lunch or we would be paddled, but that's another story for another day).  Maybe being deprived of the joy was what made this idea that I saw on another blog stick in my head.

We've been working on colors with Creed so these bright colored noodles seemed like another cheap, simple activity for days we're stuck inside.

They are so easy to make.  You will need pasta in fun shapes, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, ziplock bags, and food coloring.  Pour some rubbing alcohol in a ziplock bag (the original post said to fill the bag to totally cover the noodles, but I only used about 1/3 - 1/2 cup in each bag) add some food coloring and swish it around until it's mixed up and then pour some pasta in and seal the bag up.  I double bagged mine and put them in cereal bowls just in case they leaked.  The more dye you use and the longer you let them soak, the brighter the pasta will be.  I mixed mine during Creed's nap and squished them around and turned them over every hour or so.  Then after he went to bed for the night, I poured out the dye and spread each color on a separate cookie sheet to dry.  Because of the alcohol, they will dry really quickly.
We keep them all together in a big ziplock bag and Creed likes to sort them and stack them up and we practice naming the colors and counting them.  I suspect they will soon make it into some of the concoctions in Creed's play kitchen too.  The rubbing alcohol helps set the colors so it won't rub off and make a mess as you're playing with them.

ABC's and 123's

Eva just finished printing a new product that I designed for Sycamore Street Press and I am so excited about it!  She asked me if I was interested in designing a number print to go with the alphabet print that I designed, and of course, I jumped at the chance.  I love the new color combinations that she chose to print them in.

And she reprinted the alphabet prints in all the new color combinations too. Water and tulip, apple and chocolate, watermelon and rose, and then she reprinted the charcoal and orange.


You can find them on the Sycamore Street Press website or in the Sycamore Street Press Etsy shop.  both prints are 11" x 14" so you can use a standard size frame.  Eva cranks each one by hand through her letterpress and her hard work really makes them beautiful.

I think the water/tulip and the apple/chocolate colored prints would also look really lovely hanging in combination with the frame mats printed in matching shades of water, apple, and tulip.

Beans, Beans, the magical fruit

Yesterday, I finally got around to a project that I've been meaning to do for months.  Creed loves playing in the sand so we set out to put together an indoor version for him.  My friend Shauna made a bean box for her son to play with in the winter months and it was a great success.  I let Creed pick any dried beans that we wanted at the store and then we went home and poured them out in a cookie sheet and large muffin tins.  Ideally we would be using a shallow tupperware bin with deeper sides so the beans don't spill everywhere and we can just pop the lid on and store it when Creed's done playing.  We'll pick one up soon but we couldn't wait to play.

Creed got out the measuring spoons and cups that he so dearly loves and got busy.  He could have sat there all day if I would have let him.
It was a great way for him to work on his small motor skills and also something to keep him busy while I am cooking and he wants to "help".  Granted they were instantly scattered everywhere, but they are a lot easier to cleanup than sand and Creed liked sweeping with our little hand broom just as much as playing with the beans.

If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't go for the tiny split peas, I would try to convince Creed to pick the biggest beans, which are the easiest to clean up.  I saw someone who only used split peas and know of another friend who uses rice, but the larger beans are a lot easier to deal with and Creed doesn't care either way.

Speaking of Lisa

Last Friday, Creed got gussied up for a pre-Valentine's lunch date with Lisa.  It was cute to see Creed so excited to go.

He even insisted on wearing this fedora and he kept it on almost the whole time.

Lisa took us to Big City Soup and it was amazing.  I'm just sad that they're not open in the evenings or weekends because Larry will never have a chance to go and I would love to eat there every day of my life.  Creed ordered yellow soup which I interpreted to chicken curry soup and it turns out he made a very good choice (yellow is his new favorite color and he points it out everywhere and always requests yellow when he has a color choice, although he also calls orange yellow because he can't say orange).  Maybe it has something to do with Lisa often wearing yellow.