Today we had a rare break from showing our house, so we took full advantage of it by busting out our craft supplies. I covered the kitchen table with a cheap dollar store plastic tablecloth, taping the ends down so it didn’t move since there were going to be several of us using the same general work space. We were going to make clothes pin dolls/people and paint treasure boxes.

Our supplies consisted of: various colors of acrylic craft paint, bits and scraps of fabric, felt, lace and ribbon, ‘Aleene’s quick dry’ craft glue since a hot glue gun made me nervous around my wiggly kidlets, an array of paint brushes in sizes to paint large and small areas as well as several for tiny detail work (such as clothes pin faces and hair etc…), a package of 20 wooden clothes pins (I found these at the dollar store!), chenille stems, and chipboard boxes, or unpainted wooden boxes (both at Hobby Lobby between $1-$3 each).

We started in making the clothes pin people first, and while Noah preferred only painting his, Haven and I liked to paint them and then add fabric and some ribbon embellishments to them once the paint had dried.

I thought for sure Noah wouldn’t care for this project, but he loved making his “guys” and loved all of the painting he got to do. It was a great project for all of us since there were so many different ways to make these.

Gracen loved helping me, finding it easy to paint the bodies of the clothes pins. I ended up painting the faces for ours though since it was too much for her little three year old fingers to do right now.
It was especially fun to make them resemble some of our family members and friends. I made one that looked just like Mathes, since he wasn’t feeling much like painting today, but thoroughly enjoyed playing with the clothes pin version of himself. The kids loved adding the chenille stems for arms, with Noah explaining to me that his were actually “wrestling guys” and he made their arms look as bendily buff as he could.

Haven loved being able to pose hers, as did Gracen, but I left the arms off of mine as I presonally liked them without, and think they looked a bit more like they were wearing a kimono perhaps (at least in my mind they do).

Gracen painted her treasure box (unpainted wooden box @ Hobby Lobby for 99 cents) all by herself, with pink on the outside and purple on the inside, and once it dried she promptly filled it to the brim with the tiny bits and pieces that she deems treasure enough to be kept safely nestled inside.

Haven’s chipboard chest made for the perfect home for all of her new little clothes pin friends she created today once she painted it and let it dry.

Some of my younger children didn’t seem to care which way the “legs” of the clothes pin were turned when they painted their faces, and I wasn’t going to nag them about this minor, and to them, unecessary detail.

We had a great time painting, gluing and creating, busily making our little clothes pin people and treasure boxes, and it had the kids asking when we could do this again. I wish I knew, but until then they can at least play with these until we get another little breather from showing our house. It was so much fun and each child told me how much they loved it, but if you ask my husband, he will tell you I probably had the most fun of all. And he would be right.

-I finally went to a local fabric shop here because they are the only place in town that sells embroidery thread. now I’m kicking myself very very hard for never going in before now. They had some of the most gorgeous fabric I have ever laid eyes on and I began to drool helplessly over all of it almost as soon as I set foot in the door. And to think for 5 years I kept passing by that little shop on the corner, not knowing the treasure trove of fabric that lay within…what a fool.

-I went to Hobby Lobby today. I’ve never been before. Lots of fun and crafty stuff. The prices, not bad. The selection, also not bad.

-a woman asked if she could read my palm today, and I let her. As per her reading I am strong, cautious, cocky, outgoing and very opinionated, tend to see things in black & white, I’m very proud and concerned with the finances, always looking to get ahead and move forward, I’m good with plants and gradening, and I have an inheritance coming. I think she’s new.

-I killed another plant and had to throw it away today. not so good with plants after all. it’s not looking very good for the whole inheritance thing either.

-we sold our boat. more room to park in the driveway now. hooray!

-I found the rag doll patterns I have been looking for. now to find the time to actually sew them…

-I remembered to buy my Memorial Day flowers early and took them over to Heidi’s, so if I don’t make it back over before monday, at least our flowers will make it to the cemetary for Grandpa.

-next week is the last week of school for my children….then they are out for the summer.

-I slipped and totally fell in the parking lot the other day, in full view of pretty much everyone. it was ugly. lots of flailing, almost did the splits, then down I went onto the wet asphault. my knee still smarts.

-Finley loves to wave ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ to pretty much everyone and everything. That or scrunch up his face and make funny sounds. He loves to make us laugh.

-on a phone call to the cable company the other day, I learned that my customer service rep just had his car repo’ed that day, was born in 1977, loves 80’s music, moved from Illinois to Utah when he was 8, used to sing in his school choir and was always assigned the solos, loves to sing and considered auditioning for Idol several times at his friends urging, loves opera and wants to someday see ‘Phantom’ live and on stage, liked Brittany Spears album ‘Blackout’, was raised LDS but isn’t any more, his mom was excommunicated, he used to work for Direct TV and Boost Mobile, and he wanted David Archuleta to win on Idol. (there was more but in the interest of time/space I kept it brief). not quite sure how that all came up either.

-my “Sock & Glove” book arrived yesterday, and it really was worth it.

Craig and I were able to get out for a little date last night, and went to see the new Indiana Jones movie. We bought our tickets earlier that afternoon for the late showing, fully expecting it to sell out or at the very least, the theater would be packed. We arrived 30 minutes early to a parking lot that was practically deserted, and we ended up in the theater with only about 20 other people there to watch the movie. I guess everyone else is waiting for the weekend to go and see it, but since Craig had friday off from work, it was the start of our weekend, so it worked out for us. It meant we were able to get the seats we wanted, and no one else was sitting on either side of us, which was great. We both really enjoyed the movie, it was a lot of fun, and we felt it stayed true to the other three films before it. I highly recommend it for just having a great time and enjoying a fun movie.

The one thing I didn’t like however had nothing to do with the actual movie, but the people sitting in front of us. It was a couple and they had their 3-4 year old little boy with them. This move was @ 10pm, so not only was it kind of late for him to be up, but this movie is rated pg-13, did this little child really need to be seeing this? And sure enough, numerous times during the movie the little boy whimpered, covered his face, even crying out to his dad that he was scared, and was immediately shushed and told to knock it off. Just great. I understand that sometimes it’s hard to find a sitter, really understand…..but I still don’t think that justifies taking a very small child to see a movie with some pretty harsh and scary scenes/images in it. Being a parent means more often than not, putting our children first and thinking about what is going to be best for them, even if it’s inconvenient for us. I know, I probably don’t know the whole story of that little family, but you would be hard pressed to convince me that it was still a good idea to bring that little boy along.

Haven’s class play was last night, and she did a fantastic job as the ‘mama mouse’! We are so proud of her and all of her hard work memorizing her lines! She was so cute in her costume, it was so much easier to make than expected, and as you can see it all came together quite nicely. And now that her play is over I can remove the pink felt ‘belly’on the front of the shirt and the little tail from the pants so she can wear this as a regular outfit now. Of the entire costume, the ears were my favorite part to make, working up in no time, and she looks so cute wearing them! I used this template from this site, modifying the pattern and the directions to suit my needs. I made them using gray fleece on the front and back, and pink felt for the inner ear, and lined them with the stiffest pellon I could find so that they would stand up and really look like little mouse ears, all to slide onto a simple black headband. This whole expernece has given me a few ideas for this halloween too…the possibilites…

My little G is quite the little artist. Completely unfettered by any of societies norms, she chooses her canvases at will without a second thought as to how frustrated her mom might get, or to how much trouble she is going to be in when I discover her most recent accomplishment. So far her favorite canvases are walls. And not just one wall, but many, many…..many walls. And sometimes tables, chairs and furniture. Her favorite medium tends to be pencil, lucky for me, but there have been many occasions where she actually deigned to use a pen, crayon or *gasp* marker as she let loose with her creativity.

Were our house not on the market I would have little to worry about and it would be a phase I could have some patience with, but that’s not our world right now. So as you can imagine I have invested heavily in Mr.Clean’s Magic Erasers, as it’s the only thing stopping me from total insanity since every new day brings the promise of a new rendering of genius on any given surface in my home. Although none of this is new as we have had this very same challenge with both C and H, so I know they eventually grow out of it, at some point…maybe…

So, as she passes by the stacks of paper and such that I leave out for her in the vain hope that she will adopt a new approach to her art, she continues to eschew the traditional contrivances, much happier with and preferring the unconventional instead. So for now I will enjoy her new works each day (as well as hide any and all writing tools as I come across them) and hope that whoever tours our home has an eye for the gifted, and a love of natural art from the heart of small ones.

(Sorry it took me so long to post this Kerry…) I got this delicious recipe from here, and we love it! I followed her recipe exactly, except I added a little almond extract because I personally love it, but you don’t have to. The cookie dough comes out a bit dry-ish and crumbly so I suggest thoroughly chilling your dough before slicing it for this very reason, but even with a crumbly dough, these cookies bake up beautifully, and are simply delicious! Enjoy! (we certainly did)

Oatmeal Crispies/Oatmeal Pecan Cookies

In a large mixing bowl combine:

-1 cup shortening
-1 cup packed brown sugar
-1 cup sugar

Cream with an electric mixer until well combined.
In a separate small bowl beat together:

-2 eggs
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-1/4 - 1/2 tsp. almond extract (optional)

Add the egg mixture to the creamed mixture, and beat well with your mixer.
In a separate bowl sift together

1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp baking soda

Add to the creamed mixture, and mix well.
Then add:

3 cups quick cooking rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Mix together well. Divide the dough in to two equal portions, and place each on their own piece of waxed paper. Shape/roll each portion into a uniformly sized log. Wrap each log tightly in the waxed paper, and chill or freeze the dough until ready to use. To bake cookies, slice logs into desired size cookies, and place onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Thinner slices equal cripier cookies, thicker slices equal softer/chewier cookies, it’s your choice. Bake @ 350 degrees F for 8-10 minutes, or until light golden brown. Remove to wire racks to cool, and enjoy!

Did you know it is nearly impossible to find a gray shirt in the girls section of my local Wal-Mart? I do. Haven needs a “mama mouse” costume by Monday for her school play. So, fool that I am, I head off to the store in search of what I believe will be easy-to-find, inexpensive gray clothing (ie: sweats or leggings and a t-shirt), and the materials to make a set of ears on a headband. In and out right? One short trip to the store then home…sure! Run in, grab it and go. How long could it possibly take, 30 minutes? 40? No. Not even close. I was in dream land. Total dream land, because they didn’t have a single gray t-shirt or sweats in the girls section, anywhere. Not even charcoal. Nothing. Just lots of pink, red, black, white, blue, khaki, teal, purple, and zero gray. Now I know I have limited local shopping in my neck of the woods, but come on! Gray isn’t exactly an exotic color, in fact it’s pretty common, isn’t it? No. Not where I’m shopping.

Just as I was about to give up my will to live and make Haven a very cute purple mama mouse, I stumbled across a pair of knit capri pants stashed at the very back of a clearance rack, miraculously gray in color, and only $5. Who cares that they’re a size larger than she wears, I can take in the sides to make them fit better. Who cares that she will look like a deceptively sporty yet baggy capri pants wearing mama mouse in her school play, I’m done fretting. I was beyond desperate at this point, and still had yet to find the shirt to finish the costume anyways, so the hunt was on again, even after our torturous two hour search (yes, two hours) in the girls section that only yielded pants, we’re still short a top, which means more fruitless meandering and looking through racks we have already been through a hundred time before to no avail. Then it hits me…the boys section! So off I run, and what do you know, there it is, right by the aisle, on the very top of the stack, a plain gray t-shirt, and only $3.50. Yay!

After that it only took me another 37 minutes to get the stuff to make her a headband with ears. I would have been faster but I was distracted by all of the delicious colors of fabric, beckoning to me, calling my name, begging to come home with me. So after I had grabbed several bolts of not-on-my-list-but-I-need-it-anyways fabric, I managed to get back on track with the plan and find the grey fleece and pink felt and find my way to the checkstands so I could pay and get myself out of there. Who knew mice were this hard?

you know your fabric addiction has really become a problem when your 6-year old daughter happily dashes over and greets the apparently all-to-familiar fabric store employee at the cutting table by her (unusual) first name…..correctly.

Like paper dolls? If so, stop by this site for a bunch of great links where you can print out your very own, with some already in color, and others in B&W and ready to be colored. I was surprised at the selection, with lots for the girls, even some for the boys, and a large number geared towards grownups, at least I’m assuming they were since (FYI) they even have a Hilary Clinton paper doll. Hey, maybe someone really wants to support her… (but mommy, I don’t like this doll, she had really frumpy hair.) Anyways, you’ll just have to take a look, so stop by and check out some of the links and I’m sure you will find some to print out for your little ones, and maybe even for yourself? You can always use the excuse that you’re “helping” your child with their paper dolls, and I might even believe you…that is if you look really earnest as you lie through your teeth while dressing ‘Sister’ from the ‘Berenstein Bears’ collection (hey, I’ve been naive enough to fall for bigger whoppers than this, so you have a pretty good shot).

So stop dilly dallying, and start printing! I know that I will be printing some out for myself children to bring to church this Sunday since they’re pretty quiet. The paper dolls are quiet, not my children… Anyways, I looked through most of them and only one seemed a bit too mature, so avoid the “Third Squirrel”, it was a bit much. (and if you come across any others that are not up to “standard”, please leave a note in the comments so we can avoid them). Also, not all of the links are current as I so sadly found out when I clicked on the link for the “Girl Guides of Canada” paper dolls. Bummer.

For a while now I have been eyeing (and drooling over) several of the Japanese craft books I have come across online. A handful are published in English, but the majority tend to be written entirely in Japanese. Although, from what I have seen and read about them, it doesn’t end up being much of a problem since the diagrams and pictures are usually quite detailed and easy to follow. The general consensus is that if you have a pretty good grasp of the skills for the type of book purchased (such as sewing for a pattern book, crochet skills for a crochet book etc…) then you can make just about anything in any of the many different craft books out there. A couple of the books I’m eyeing have the patterns to make these-

I love it! They’re simply beautiful.

Another book I have considered is ‘Sock & Glove’ which does come published in English, and looks like a lot of fun since everything is made with either socks or gloves…hence the name.

I know my little ones (and even my teenage daughter…but don’t tell her I said so) would love getting one of these to snuggle and/or play with, don’t they look like fun? These really appeal to me for their lovable, homemade look. So now I just have to find enough time between showings to get my sewing stuff out again so that ordering any of these books means they might actually get used instead of set aside for the time being….although I’m not sure just how long of a wait this will be. Here’s hoping it’s not long at all.