B-day Mania

Mid-February marks the beginning of birthday season among our group of friends with kids. Saturday we went to a raucous party at iMollie's house for Henry. Best quote of the day: "Time to break out the New Castle."


His pressie was a retro-throwback t-shirt. I got a red and white three-quarter-sleeves t-shirt for my 8th(?) birthday that had letters just like this, only mine were my initials. I love making (and buying) things that remind me of stuff I had when I was a kid.


Sunday's party was an indoor/outdoor affair complete with blow up jumping thing in the yard. Arwyn declared her place as life of the party by walking into the garage and announcing, "I pooped!" to anyone who wished to hear.


We spent the remainder of the day camped out at home with a recurring fever, which seems to have mysteriously disappeared over the course of today. I'm hoping we didn't spread the germy love to everyone at the party.


I've spent the majority of the day pouring over the Strawberry Shortcake listings on ebay. We are currently in a phase and I am happy to encourage this one. It brings back all those rainbow colored childhood memories, coveting my friend's humongous Strawberry Shortcake collection while sniffling over my one little measly doll. I sound like a spoiled brat. I wasn't then, but am now! hee hee


After reading a magazine article about people who won the Lottery, Bubby and I had a funny discussion about what we'd do if we hit it big. Now he's accusing me of harboring a secret toy fantasy all these years. But it's all for the girl! I swear!

Easy as ...

This is a little ABC book that I made for Arwyn a couple of weeks ago. I knew if I didn't make it right away, it would join the pile of unfinished projects on the dining room table, so I stayed up until 1 am to finish it. Go me!

Bubby researched Disney characters for me to fill in some of the difficult letters (I and Y). I started out wanting it to include only people we knew, but that proved to be impossible. So I switched gears and included several characters that she is familiar with and a few that she's not.


This was a fun project and would make a neat gift for a kid. As you can see, I just printed the pictures out and glued them to some card stock. I used a black Sharpie to draw the letters. Not very glamorous, but she doesn't care!


I punched holes on the fold and tied it with a pretty ribbon.


Self publication is the way to go.

Patchwork Card

Here's a little card/tag that I made for a birthday present for a friend's little girl. I whipped this up while Arwyn was "helping" and it probably only took about 10 minutes. I didn't think it turned out too bad, considering all the help I had and the time limit.

I drew an 'm' freehand on a folded piece of cardstock and cut it out. Then I outlined the 'm' with a marker and cut out little pieces of scrap paper to fill in the inside of the letter. I punched a hole in the top and threaded a ribbon through to attach to the package. Can you tell what we got her? (Cheap see-through wrapping paper) This was easy and fun and also used up some scraps. I will probably make more of these in the future.


We had a really good visit this weekend with some of my family. Pictures soon to come!

Happy Hearts Day

I managed to get Arwyn's shirts done in time to wear out and about this week for Valentine's Day, although today we are out of shirts. But we haven't gone anywhere except the backyard anyway.


This is the whale shirt, and it did turn out nicely. Arwyn doesn't really seem to see the need to dress appropriately for the weather and doesn't really dig sweatshirts too much. But she will wear the whale sweatshirt with the heart. It's hard to tell in the photo, but the heart is silver. Actually, it is Pearl White, which I discovered when I bought another bottle of Pearl White, thinking I had silver at home. Three trips to Michael's in one week (I have to return the paint!) might be a personal record for me.


Arwyn enjoyed her Valentine's party at story time yesterday a lot. It might have just been the copious amounts of candy consumed, but I like to think it was the camaraderie and togetherness of friends. Right. That and lying on the floor inhaling chocolate by the fistful.


Have a wonderful sweetheart's day.

Your Butt Feels Like Pancake Mix*

I hope I'm not jinxing myself by saying that I think we are finally out of the woods. Phew.

Seeing as Arwyn barely touched anything edible for five days, I pretty much fixed her whatever she wanted. One day she wanted pancakes at 10:15 am, so that is what we had.


Then twelve hours later I had the leftovers for a late night snack with some peanut butter and syrup. Mmmmm.


Anytime I had a chance this weekend I was running to a craft store. I made one trip to JoAnn's and two trips to Michael's over the past two days. I am going to be crafting it UP! Let's hope what I've been working on tonight doesn't fall into the Nothing I've Done Today Has Gone Right category. First I was trying to hang up some lights and stapled right through the wire. And I was so proud of myself for loading and using my staple gun all by myself. Then I was printing out some pictures and somehow they all came out about 1 inch tall. THEN I forgot dinner was under the broiler and burned the first batch of sandwiches. Um, no pictures of the black subs.


*The title is a reference to something Bubby's niece once told him when she was about six or seven years old.

Puke in a Bowl

Arwyn caught some sort of 30-hour stomach bug and I spent the better part of the day doing laundry and flinching every time she coughed. She made a miraculous recovery just in time for Daddy to get home from work. Amazing how that works. I'm so glad she's feeling better, it is just very convenient how I get puked on all day, then Daddy arrives and ta-da! She's running laps in the living room. Grumble, grumble.


I did steal a few minutes away from the recliner to finish up her Valentine's shirts. I still have a sweatshirt in the works for her, then I think I might work on something for myself (non-Valentine related). These are long sleeved t-shirts that I bought on clearance and then worked some freezer paper magic.


What I am typing isn't even making sense to me anymore, so I think I should head to bed.

Edited to add: Yeah, um, NOT a 30-hour bug. Last night was some sort of freak brief respite. Still upchucking. Lots of fun at our house.