Archive | May, 2011

My Sewing Station

31 May

This is where I sew.

Doesn’t make much sense huh?

Okay, this is where I sew:

Doesn’t make much more sense.

My sewing machine is jammed between my bed and my couch in the middle of my living room.

Lovely.

Someday, maybe some day I might have a work space bigger than two by two.

A note from Jared:

Now, at this point you might be asking, “Why are you sleeping in the living room when you have a two bedroom apartment?”

Here’s the short of it:

Anyone who has raised small children knows sleep is precious…both the children’s sleep and the parents’.  We have been careful to try to protect both as our kids grow.  Well, when Sophia was born we kept her with us in our bedroom for the first several months while she was night feeding and waking every few hours.  After many months, she was still fussing at several points throughout the night, and it wasn’t because she was hungry — she was just waking up.

 After one particularly frustrating night Caitlyn awoke in the morning determined to find a solution.  Her wonderful mother’s intuition gave her the idea that Sophia was waking simply because she was a light sleeper, and our tossing and turning or snoring was keeping her up at night.  Rather then kicking Sophia out of our room, Cait decided it was time for us to find new lodging.  I went to church that morning with both girls, and when I got home our bed had been dismantled and re-assembled in the living room.  I was mildly amused that our two bedroom apartment has suddenly become a studio, but I was willing to give it a shot.  That night Sophia slept the entire night and never made a peep.  Oh, and did I mention we slept the whole night as well?  Woohoo!

We hope to someday get the girls in a room together and maybe I’ll build them a bunk bed or something, but for now they each need their own space.  Sophia goes to bed about an hour earlier and sleeps about an hour later, so it’s good for her to be in her own bedroom.  This sleeping arrangement isn’t ideal for us, (see Cait’s sewing space) but at least we all get to sleep through the night.

And we only have one more month in seminary housing, and then, perhaps…a house?

Orange and Pink Dress

27 May

I saw this dress the other day while I was walking around the store Forever 21.

I loved how the folded skirt looked around the waistline so I decided to try it out.

Here are some pictures of Aleah playing at the park in her new dress.

*****I love this girl so much*****

whenever she is concentrating she sticks out her tongue

the zipper in the back is bright blue

The fam is going camping by the Chequamegon National Forest this weekend with a lot of old time friends.  We have never taken the girlies camping before and are a little nervous.  Will they actually sleep?  Will they be warm enough?  How dirty will they actually get?  Just some thoughts.  (yikes) Anyways, hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend!  See you next week =)

The News

24 May

Okay here is a little video to tell you all the events that happened this weekend. Thank you to everyone who said a little prayer for us. We had an incredible weekend. Met many amazing people and could not be more excited about our future.

http://vimeo.com/24202700

Sophia learned to walk and we got a job this weekend.  Pretty big stuff, eh?

This is a picture of the loving woman who opened her home to us this past weekend.

She has a gorgeous home overlooking Lake Vermillion and we even got to go boating on the lake Sunday afternoon.

Overall it was an incredibly jam-packed weekend but we got to meet a ton of people and are excited to start working up there in the middle of July!

Yay, we have a job!

Going out of Business

20 May

There is a little fabric store near our apartment that is going out of business.

It is sad that they have lost their lease but very happy how low all their prices have gotten.

I have been to this location three times in the last two weeks.  The first trip was to check it out and buy some fabric for clothes for the gals.  The second trip was to buy my mommykins some cheapo fabric for her craftiness.  The third trip was today to stock up on fabric for curtains if we have a house someday =)

I couldn’t help myself.  All the fabric is 60% off and notions are 30% off.  They close their doors on May 30th but I think I am done with my fabric shopping.  I have quite the stash collected and I should probably not go back…

the spool of elastic Sophia is holding cost $2, wow

Maybe just once more.  Just kidding, I really am done!

Here is a picture of my collection:

Do you know how many projects this will result in?  Oh man, the possibilities are endless.

~On a side note, we are heading up north for a candidating weekend.  This means they have offered us the job but after a few church functions, people meeting us throughout the weekend and Jared preaching on Sunday, they need to vote for us to have the job.  We are excited about the weekend but also very nervous.  Here we go.  I’ll have some very good or very bad news at the start of next week.  Hope you all have a great weekend, blessings.~

Gardens and Clues

18 May

It’s been a while since the last gardening post.  Jared is a bit swamped with school and church and internships and life, so we will give him a teeny bit of grace.  He has promised to get the blog more professional looking and to post more once he graduated on June 4th.  Oh, yeah and also when he gets back from his week long fishing trip to Canada.

Here are the seedlings that we planted a while ago.  Look at how huge these giant sunflowers are!  They are crying to get outside.  We are torn between bringing them up North on our next church job visit or planting them in the Seminary garden.

This tray is filled with leafy greens such as chard, arugula spinach, basil, parsley and a variety of lettuce.  We wanted to be able to plant some things up in the Seminary community garden before we leave that we can enjoy.  Since lettuce is such an early sprouting plant that we will have some delicious salads before we move on out.

Look at the beautiful purply-red stems. Do you like the surrender flags around the plants?

I could just eat them up right now.

For Mother’s Day, Jared got me these beautiful and incredibly sweet smelling Hiacinths.  We have planted them outside so they can have some more sunshine.

here is a little clue as to where we might be moving

Spring Line

15 May

Jared and I went and looked at a possible church job up North while my mom and my grandma took care of the girlies.  Bless them both.  Before and after our little excursion up north Jared and I stopped at whatever thrift stores we could get our hands on.  We love thrifting but it has lost some of its pure “fun” because most of the time we are wrestling with our kids.  While in the store we are trying to have them not put gross who knows where that was last toys into their mouths, take off their shoes, and hide in the clothes racks– to name a few.

It was such a wonderful experience to be able to leisurely walk through a thrift store at our own pace.  Slowly gaze past the many piles of crap and sift through shelves of books.  It was amazing.

So through our relaxed thrifting experiences over the weekend, we were able to attain some pretty nice finds.  The pride of Jared’s searching were a Pendlton wool jacket for $3 and a pretty sweet local Brewery shirt we had seen at the actual brewery earlier for $22, he paid $1.50.  The pride of my shopping experience were some shirts that I will be transforming into Aleah’s Spring Line of fashionable outfits =)

Well, at least I hope they will be fashionable.

Here are the shirts that I bought and will be making into dresses for Aleah.

Here is a picture of the first dress I made.  Pictures of it are in the previous post but I thought I would show a full picture of it so you might be able to see it a bit better.

Flowers like these are everywhere and they are easy to make.  After adjusting the shirt so it would fit Aleah there was some purple fabric left over.  I twirled the extra strip of fabric and some tulle together and then sewed it together by hand.  After I had the flower just right I hand sewed the flower to the dress.  The bottom of the dress has tulle woven in and out of about a dozen holes I made.  After weaving it through the shirt I simply sewed the tulle together and made sure the sewed part stays on the inside of the dress.

Helper

12 May

Most, if not all, of my sewing happens either during naptime or after the girls have gone to bed.

This is what happens when I am almost done with a project and don’t want to stop working when Sophia wakes up:

She loves being involved.

And then I end up playing with the little bugger because she is just so darn cute.

Zoo Morning

10 May

We have not had a warm spring.  Not one bit.  It has been snowy and freezing and 30-40 degrees.

So, when I listened to the weather and found that it was going to be 80 today I planned a trip to the Como Zoo.

It is an absolutely gorgeous day and I loved having to pack snacks and sunscreen instead of coats, boots, rain gear and hot chocolate.

I made Aleah this purple dress.  It has a cute flower on the top of it and on the bottom it has a little design.

I cut about a dozen, half inch vertical holes in the  bottom of the shirt and threaded some tulle in and out.

I was laying in bed one morning and thinking if this would work, and it did!

I have a few more outfits I am working on for the kiddos and can’t wait to show them to you.  I am totally getting inspired by the warm weather.  Spring outfits are so much fun!

Yes, she is having a morning cheetos snack =)

Me, the kids, and a giant leopard

Aleah yelling into the face of this poor turtle

I think they made amends because he let her ride him, after their little "talk"

Happy Mothers Day

8 May

Happy Mothers Day to all you mothers out there!

I have been a mom for almost three years now and have been celebrated for two Mothers Days.  Mothers Day is a funny thing.  It is fun to draw your mom pictures and bring her breakfast in bed when you are little but it takes on a whole new meaning when you are a mommy yourself.  You can appreciate more what your own mother did for you since you can now grasp what it takes.

I am so thankful for my mommy and am so blessed by my little ones who have made me a mom.

Jared is so crafty and thoughtful.  The past two years he has made me gifts with the girls “help.”

In 2009 Jared made me window boxes for outside our apartment.  Below the window there is a metal slab.  He put a magnet on the bottom of the window boxes so that they would stay.  So ingenious!  This past winter we didn’t really get around to taking them down and they stayed put through all the snow and storms.  My favorite part about these boxes though is not the beautiful flowers that greet me every morning or the magnets that make them stay put.  The best part about the window boxes is that Aleah’s cute little hand prints are all over the front and that they made them together for me.

Unfortunately, I don’t actually have pictures of those boxes right now, but here are some pictures of Aleah helping me fill the planters that go inside the boxes.

she kept going out into the field to find the perfect dandelion for her to pick

Then she would come back and help me plant the dandelions into the flower boxes

The 2010 Mothers Day greeted me with a sign for our garden.  It stood in the middle of our garden all summer long and will travel with us wherever we end up.  Our good friend, Hawker, was around last Mother’s Day and he was able to pitch in and help with the painting.

Happy Mothers Day to all you wonderful, selfless, thoughtful, beautiful mothers out there.  Love you all!

Bachelorette Party Sash

4 May

I was the matron of honor for my wonderful friend Tonia’s wedding, the author of Itty Bitty Impact.  So therefore I had the duty of throwing her a rip roaring bachelorette party.

Since I had never thrown one of these such parties I was a bit overwhelmed but also excited about a chance to hang out with friends and have a fun night out in Minneapolis.

The activities I was in charge of organizing were horse back riding, dinner at Pizza Luce, and drinks around the town, so I thought I needed to make her a pretty sash for the festivities.

I simply cut out the letters and sewed around them in order the make the sash

This is a picture of her opening the package involving some necklaces, Aleah’s princess crown and a fun sash to wear throughout the evening.

How cool is Tonia to want to go horseback riding for the kick off of her bachelorette party?

Pizza Luce excitement and then walking around downtown Minneapolis.

There is one fun and easy craft that got around to some fun places for Tonia’s bachelorette party.