T-Shirt Scarf

I have a TON of old t-shirts that are just packed away in boxes. Initially they get put there because I either needed more room in my dresser, or I just simply hadn't warn them in a while. Seasons changes and the boxes get shuffled around a bit but the same shirts remain in the boxes time after time. I can't throw them away because what if one day I wanted to wear it again. Ugh! Plus some of them aren't just shirts. Some of them have memories attached to them. Like the one I brought home from Odessa when visiting a friend, or the one I received at State BPA. Clearly they are all at least 6 years old and haven't been wore for about 4 years.... So now its time I start making them into something that I will wear again.

My younger sister was passing through tonight so I wrangled her into helping me out with this one. I didn't tell her what we were making - I just told her what to do to help : ) Turns out its hard for a lefty to use right-handed scissors. Initially we were going to make two scarves, but we merged them into one. Here's how we did it:

1. Lay out the shirt flat. An ironed shirt works better than a wrinkled one. Cut the bottom hem off and save it.

2. Grab a 9'' paper plate. You can either trace around it and then cut it out, or do like we did, pin the plate to the shirt and then cut around it. In total, you want to aim to make 10 circles. Using XL or XXL probably works best. I used size Large and could only get 8, which is why we ended up putting ours together. After you cut one out, place it on top the shirt and pin it. This makes cutting them out easier.

3. One you have all 8-10 circles, your going to do what I did when I made the felt flowers. Cut the circle into a long strip, approximately 2'' wide. The skinner you cut the longer it will be. Keep in mind, one of these pieces equals half a length of your scarf.

4. Once you reach the end, Hold the piece from what would have been the middle. Start at the top and gently put down on the fabric. This will stretch it out a bit and create a wavy look.

5. After all the circles are cut and pulled out, match up the lengths as best you can. (Robin had to cut one to make it shorter as it ended up 6'' longer than the rest because she cut it too thin!)

6. Using fabric glue, glue the matched pieces together. I glued the end of the strips together that would have been the middle of the circles.

7. If you used different colors like we did, mix them up a bit once they are all glued together.

8. Bunch up the strips of fabrics, holding all the glued pieces in the same spot. Using the hem strip, wrap it around the glued part to cover it up and then tie it in a pretty knot to hold it all together. 

And Wah-La! A t-shirt scarf. Good to dress up, or dress down any outfit!

2011 In Review

2011 was a very eventful year for us! Here are some highlights!

January:

* Bought my wedding dress after a day of shopping with my mom
February:
 * Celebrated JP's 1st birthday. Check out his cake here:
 http://sadies-story.blogspot.com/2011/12/barnyard-cake_21.html
* Perry and I went to Couer d'Alene for a parenting seminar - Very insightful!



March:
* Visited the farm and booked our Honeymoon.

April:

* Went to a church retreat with my mother-in-law and met some wonderful people!

May:

* I made a trip out to the Tacoma area to visit a sister and an old friend and to go bridesmaid dress shopping. This was the first time I had ever been to a piano bar - VERY cool!

June:

* Took a quick trip to Spokane with my sisters for a sisters weekend - I introduced them to Pass the Pigs :)
* Took another quick family trip to Oregon - learned to drive Perry's manual Kia. SCARY!

July:

* Visited my hometown for my bridal shower, where I received, about 25 pie pans!! : )
* Took dance lesson with Perry - lots of fun!
* After 17 1/2 long months, JP started walking!

August:

* Perry and I were in one of our friends' wedding.
* A dear hit my precious Grand Am, which turned into getting a new car. : )
* Perry left Sears and took a job as an Assistant Manager at Wal-Mart.
September:
* Perry left for AZ for 4 weeks to train for his new job. He finished the day before the wedding....
* Perry and I tied the knot (finally!) and had a blast the whole day! The boys were our ring bearers- they did awesome! JP was caught picking his nose on the alter : )

October:

* Our honeymoon took us to Jamaica - both our first times leaving the country (with the exception of Canada) After a 24 hour flight there we relaxed with a couples massage. We tried out snorkeling and zip-lining while we were there too!
November
* Hunter shared his birthday again with the Cat/Griz football game. Good thing he loves football. Check out his birthday cake here:
http://sadies-story.blogspot.com/2011/12/fire-truck-cake_21.html
Decemeber
*Christmas was spent with my family at Fairmont Hot Springs. Here's how it went:
http://sadies-story.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-eve-christmas-day-2011.html

Pancakes

Okay, so they aren't perfect, but the boys loved them anyways! Yesterday we had a family day. Perry and I very rarely, unless we request it, have days off together. We started it by sleeping in...til 8:30a. (A rarity at our house.) And finished the morning with a nice family breakfast.

I received a "I don't know what you call it" tube container thing in my stocking from Santa. It has a little piece on the end for you to draw out your shapes with. The first time I used it, my batter was too lumpy and think so they didn't turn out very well. This was my second attempt at using it before I hid it in the back of the pantry.

Hunter requested a pig. JP didn't know what he wanted so I created him a car. Turned out WAY bigger than I had pictured it in my head, so the boys ended up splitting the car and I at the pig. Perry requested a triangle. ( I later made him the letter "P" ) Aunt Kile showed up for breakfast just in time to request her heart shaped pancake.

DIY Hairbands

I'm a mom of boys...and for anyone who knows me, I've always wanted a little girl. With that said, sometimes my boys, mainly Hunter, thinks he a little girl. He LOVES wearing my "pretties" which include my necklaces, bracelets and hair accessories, like hairbands. Heck, today at the store, I went to buy some chicken noodle soup with the fun shapes in it. I asked Hunter if he wanted the ones with Cars on it. "No mom, I want the Barbie one!" We ended up getting SpongeBob for JP, and the Princess one for Hunter...ugh. Anyways.

Here's what I did during nap time today. I bought a few hairbands at the store today ( 5 pack for $2.97) and then created a few felt flowers. Free style cut some leaves and glued it all together. Took me about 30 minutes total.

Clearly theses wouldn't go well with my boys' outfits so I'm sending them to Britta, who has two girls about the same ages as my boys. Some day I might be able to keep them for a little girl of my own. Until then....

Enjoy!

Felt Flowers

I created a yarn wreath a few weeks ago (http://sadies-story.blogspot.com/2011/12/yarn-wreath.html) and a few people asked me how I made the flowers. It only takes a few minutes, if your kids aren't hanging on you : )

1. Cut your felt into a square. The bigger the square, the larger the flower. If you use a whole piece, your flower would be about the size of your palm. Give or take. I used square that measured approximate 4"x4".

2. Either draw a circle on your felt if your not good at freestyle cutting, or simply cut it into a circle.

3. Cut around the edges of your circle in a wavy motion. No pattern necessary.

4. Start at any point on the circle and start cutting in a circular pattern. Don't cut all the way to the end. Leave a little round circle at the end. (A bigger circle if your flower is bigger.) This will be the base.

5. Roll the end starting from where you began cutting. Roll it until you can hold it without unraveling.

6. Using your hot glue gun, put a little squirt of glue on the bottom edge and continue rolling. Periodically glue as you roll to hold the whole thing together.

7. One its all rolled and glued, glue the base on it. If the base is too big, you can trim it off so it isn't seen. Don't worry if it doesn't cover the entire bottom either. As long as it has a flat bottom, you'll be able to glue or safety pin it to anything.

AND TA-DAH!! You have yourself a felt flower : )

Reserve Street Wreck

I feel a little guilty "sight-seeing" today. How could I not though? I have to little boys that LOVE to see fire trucks and police cars. On top of that they could see a crane too! And only about 3 blocks from our house.

This morning at about 5am, a car and a semi-truck had a head on collision on Reserve Street. Of course it wasn't just any semi-truck, it was one carrying propane. Lucky for us, one of our good friends called Perry, but  since he didn't answer (I wish I was a sound sleeper!) he immediately called me at about 6:15a. Because the truck was carrying propane, they had to be extra cautious about the situation and call in our local gas company to check for leaks. In the meantime, our friend Matt, called to let us know that they might be evacuating our little lane because of the incident. Called to give us a heads up since we have to little kids that we'd have to get ready.

Immediately I went into panic mood. I've never been in an evacuation before! Perry was calm as ever though...got out of bed and took a shower. As for me, I kinda just paced around the living room thinking about where we go if we had to leave, and what we'd bring.

I think if I could only bring one thing from my house (other than my kids) I would bring my Hitachi external hard drive. It has all the videos and pictures of the boys on it - I couldn't imagine parting with all those memories. I'm still upset about our video camera being stolen from Perry's car last July. That makes me sick to my stomach to think that someone out there has it, with all the videos of my kids on it. Granted I had uploaded most of them, but the last couple months hadn't been...Anyways. I would leave my purse behind because, knowing Perry, he'd have his wallet in his pocket, so we'd be okay money wise until I could get replacements.

Needless to say though, Perry walked down to the end of the block and chatted with a police officer that was blocking the road. It was then confirmed that we could stay. Thank goodness! I don't know how I did it, but I somehow managed to go back to bed for a little while...

The boys and I took a short little wagon ride to the end of the block so they could see all the fire trucks and police cars. Here's what we could see from the end of our street.

On the far right you can see the crane - this was used to help put the semi back on it's wheels.
This main street has been closed now for about 12 hours, backing up traffic through out the town! It took Perry  45 minutes to get to work, a mile and a half away!

Here's the picture of the semi truck from the news station:

Here's the link for the whole story: http://www.kpax.com/full-coverage/missoula-propane-tanker-accident/#!prettyPhoto[gallery]/9/

Christmas Eve & Christmas Day 2011

Not sure who the little boy is in the back....

Christmas Eve was spent in Fairmont Hot Springs with my mom & dad and sisters, along with Perry and the boys. As soon as we arrived, everyone headed down to the pools for a nice swim. My mom had water wings and a swimsuit with built in floaties for Hunter. Hunter took to swimming a lot quicker than JP did.




As soon as we walked through the door, JP turned around and headed the other way. By the end of the swimming trip, JP was done crying and had laughed and smiled a few times. He even sat on the stairs by himself. Hunter had enough confidence to walk around the shallow end a few times. By the time we got back to the room, JP was too exhausted to even speak. He just laid on the bed and mouthed his answers.

After cleaning up from the pool, we gathered in one room to have sandwiches that Kim made, along with ham & cheese rollups and puppy chow. Not a typical Christmas dinner, but it sure was yummy! This is when I started the present giving and gave out my gifts of wine. Of course the boys wanted to open gifts so one by one they started. Out of no where, someone yelled that they saw Santa out the window and urged Hunter & JP to go check it out, and of course by the time they got to the window, Santa was gone. About twenty minutes later, Papa Craig saw Santa out the window so the boys went running to the window again, only to miss him again.

We continued to open gifts and laugh together. Suddenly Hunter shreaked, "I saw Santa! He was out the window!" He got off his chair and ran to the window. Everyone else missed him that time. We had planned for Santa, a.k.a. Papa Craig, to dropped their presents by the door, but not until morning. Once again about ten minutes later, Hunter said he saw Santa out the window. This time Papa Craig ran into the hall and let out his HoHoHo as the boys eagerly ran to the door. By the time they got there, Santa was gone, but had left his hat and their presents. Aunt Bobby took Hunter running down the hall to see if they could find him. JP wandered down the hall after them, clueless. They had so much fun opening presents when they finally got back to the room!

Once the boys had all their presents opened, it was off to bed for them. They were so tired! Not having naps and then swimming and eating candy should have wore them out sooner than it did! They were exhausted little boys, but they didn't go to bed right away. It took a few trips into the next room to quiet them down. Meanwhile the adults played Papa Craig's dice game called Craigslist. : ) Winner (myself!) received the gift Kile brought, consisting of a little Santa, some chocolate, and a bottle of wine from Poulsbo, Washington. The rest of the evening we spent opening our Santa presents and then a few of us took at late night swim.

My family + Nanny & Papa & the Aunts

The next morning we all went to church in Anaconda and then returned to the hotel for a quick bite to eat and to get photos by the tree. In Fairmont, that's almost a "have-to" thing. Then off the four of us went back home to see what Santa had left for us there. (Before we departed the day before, we set up all of Santa's gifts and stockings so they would be ready when we arrived.) After long naps in the car, the boys were ready to open presents as soon as we got home.

JP says "go way"    

Hunter says he got 5 cars

Santa gave Hunter and JP a "really cool" tool bench!

The gift Hunter had been waiting for....

We went Christmas shopping in November with the boy in tow. JP was going to get a keyboard of some sort, and since Hunter was in the right place at the right time, he scored himself a guitar. Silly mommy wrapped it without turning it to off. So every now and again (which was pretty often) this gift was bumped so Elmo would start talking. Pretty sure this is one of Hunter's favorite gifts. And on my list of "I can only hear it so much." See video below.  : )

Looks like we have a rock star on our hands! He repetitively asked Perry and I last night "Are you ready to dance?!"