Second Christmas

I did it!  I'm posting the last of our Christmas pictures before January ends.  There aren't a whole lot of them.  It was a quiet, relaxing day, spent mostly in our pj's.  The girls built Lego's, we all played video games, and Shawn and I both bought each other a Kindle so we spent some time reading.  It was also just nice to be home after the long trip to Utah.

And here as an added bonus, a shot of my first craft of 2012!  I made this backpack gift bag for our nephew.  I've had this idea floating around in my head for a while.  It turned out just as I envisioned and I already have some plans to use the pattern again.

And now I am almost caught up in my blogging.  I have another big craft to blog about and a few things to show that I made from Pinterest.  Are you on Pinterest?  Follow me if you are, it's a lot of fun!  I might be blogging a lot in the next few days since my MOHS procedure is tomorrow morning and I might be housebound for a few days after that.  Have a happy day :)

So Behind

I am so behind in blogging now that soon it will be Athena's birthday and you will be seeing Christmas pictures!  I would really love to get to a point where I can fit in blogging on a daily basis or at least weekly, but for now life gets in the way.  So for now enjoy some shots from our trip to Utah, I didn't take nearly enough.  And please don't take it personally if I didn't take any the day we visited you, it isn't that I didn't want any pictures of you it's just that it slipped my mind the camera was even in my purse!  I swear I need to start wearing it around my neck again so I remember to take pictures.  And how did I miss getting a picture of Hailey in her Nana sweater?!!  Anyway here are a few shots I did manage to get.

Athena in the tree at my mom's house.

This is my adorable little great nephew (is that what you call the son of your niece?  it sounds so strange) Parker with his cat Moo.

Athena at the aquarium.

Andrew, Will and Athena with some penguin friends.

Athena and Andrew "driving" a boat.

On a frog.

Athena on the moon at the Planetarium.

Parker snuggling with Hailey.

The girls playing the organ.

My great niece Freya.  She is such a doll.

Christmas day at Nana & Papa's.

I think Eric is saying what everyone feels Christmas morning ;)

Athena in her new sweater from Nana, it's so cute!

Be sure to keep checking in as I have a few finished crafts to post soon and some news about a spelling bee!  Also check out our flickr because I did actually take a few more pictures that I will post there.  You can see that Athena had a closed eyes theme going on this year.

Some Hand Made Gifts

I made a few fun things this year as Christmas gifts.  The girls got the usual new pj's.  I also made a few pairs for a few special people but seem to have lost the picture I took of them or I never actually took a picture just thought about it.  I love making pj's, they are such an easy and quick thing for me now and always seem to be loved by the recipient.  I also love how I accidentally got a great picture of Bubbles :)

I think my favorite thing I made this holiday season was this little outfit for Shawn's sister who is expecting.  It's been a while since there was a baby girl on the way and I have had this tu-tu idea in my head for a long time.  And it just so happens that baby's daddy is in a band so I got to do some more freezer paper stenciling too and put the band's logo on the onesie.

I had an idea last summer for a great teacher gift this year.  My tote bags with matching notebook and pencil cases.  The thing is Athena has three teachers this year!  It was fun though.  Athena picked out the fabrics for each one to make them unique to each teacher.  They seemed to like them and I think I may use this idea for any birthday parties Athena is invited to that we have no ideas for.  They are another item I can whip up pretty fast now that I have made so many of them.

Also in the missing photo category, I made a bunch of gift card holders using a form of this tutorial.  Although I made a few changes to make them my own.  Another thing I think I am going to just make a few of with scraps to have around in case the need for a gift comes up.

So that's about it for things I made for Christmas.  Next time I blog I will have the few pictures I actually took while we were in Utah to post.  Hope you all are enjoying the New Year.

New Year Again?

How can it be a new year again already?  I have so much to blog about that I don't know where to start.  I think I have to go back to December and our fun little trip to Castle's and Coaster's for Shawn's work holiday party.

Here's Athena flying along the zip-line

 Here's Athena again in a go-cart.

 Hailey ready to race in her cart.

 Kayla, Drew and Hailey on the rocket type thing.

 Athena and Kayla on the bumper boats.

 Shawn and the girls on the log ride.

We had a nice time with perfect weather.  Athena and Hailey both got to bring a friend along.  It was a nice little break from all the sewing and planning getting ready for Christmas and our trip to Utah.  Watch for a post on that soon.  Right now I am having a hard time putting down my book.  I'm on the second of the Hunger Games trilogy and just want to read, read, read!

Christmas Cookies?

We made some Christmas cookies this weekend.  But being my family you know they aren't going to be just regular ole Christmas cookies right?  So here's a game for you, see if you can find the following cookies in the photo above.  And yes those are Rhino's.  Why?  Because I actually own a rhino cookie cutter that's why.

The Magical Blue Christmas Rhino
clown
fig leaf wearing gingerbread man
The Hulk
Mrs. Bill
riendeer Marge Simpson
Dr. Who's sonic screwdriver
Lego head

Yeah we're strange.  Hope you all are enjoying your December.  I'm running out of time and should really be shopping or sewing right now instead of blogging.

It's Bigger on the Inside

I am a full fledged Whovian now.  My Tardis bag is finally done.  For those that don't know, I have recently become totally, completely obsessed with Dr. Who.  Although at the moment I am slowly savoring the last few David Tennant episodes, I'm afraid to move on.  What if I don't like Matt Smith as the Doctor?  Anyway, I have been wanting a new purse and with a trip coming up that involves an airplane I wanted something a bit bigger that I can wear across my body to keep my hands free.  So I was inspired by this bag of Hailey's.  Perfect size, nice long strap, but it was just screaming for the perfect touch.

I've also been trying to find a project to try out freezer paper stencils on.  So I thought this would be the perfect way to have a totally unique Dr. Who item and take care of two needs at the same time.  I didn't realize what a huge project I was taking on.  I traced out the above bag and made up a pattern, but I wanted to add some custom pockets for my phone, a pen and sunglasses.  I really wanted it to stand out though so I found this beautiful fabric, isn't it fabulous!?  The wait for it almost killed me, but then it was here.  The funny thing is the most difficult part of the whole process was getting just the right shade of blue paint for my stencil.  Six bottles later I found it.  I ended up doing a base coat of a lighter blue first, then the second coat of a darker blue mixed with just a couple drops of white.  It sort of gave it a weathered look too, totally by accident.  So here is the finished product!

Here is the front panel, just under the flap.  With my custom pockets to keep my phone, pen, wallet easy to find.

And of course I need matching accessories too.  So here is my Cyberman notebook.

Dalek card holder.
.

My do-dad bag.  So things like Carmex. ibuprofen, and visene don't get lost in the bottom of the bag.

And gotta have a tissue cover.

So there you go.  Now you all know the extent of my obsessed nerdiness.  Now I just need somewhere to go so I can try it out.  Guess it's time to move onto my Christmas sewing now.

Thanksgiving 2011

Yes I'm still around.  It has been a while since I blogged, although I think about it almost daily.  We have had a busy couple of weeks.  Athena had her first performance for Elite Choir a couple of weekends ago.  They did a great job.  She looked really nervous though which is odd since there were only a few parents in the crowd and she has danced in front of a lot more people than that before.  When I asked her after she said she wasn't nervous the sun was in her eyes.

We have also found a new dance studio, so we have been there a few times checking things out and trying new classes.  It's a little more of a drive but we already know the owner and Miss Jan is teaching the tap class so I think it will be worth the drive.  She has also mentioned an interest in taking piano lessons.  We are going to look into that after the holidays, if she is still interested ;)

We had a very nice Thanksgiving.  Just the four of us and Hailey's boyfriend Drew.  The food all turned out great, even the gravy.  Woohoo 2 years in a row now!  We ate then introduced Drew to Settlers of Catan, which he won.  Beginners luck I say!  The only downside of the day was Athena was feeling a bit under the weather.  Luckily she was back to her old self by Friday night.  We tried to get some shopping done over the weekend in actual stores, without much luck.  Thank goodness for Amazon.  Then went to see The Muppets yesterday.  I LOVED it!  I love the Muppets though so that might have helped.  I still remember seeing the first Muppet Movie in the theater with my uncle Dave.

Now I am in slight freak out mode because I counted the days until we leave for Utah.  18!!  I still have a lot of sewing and shopping to do before then.  So I'm off to sew now.  I may get some video up of Athena singing soon but for now enjoy this picture of her cute little face.