So Much to Blog About

So, obviously I have been a total blogger slacker. And I'm trying to get caught up. And that's why I'm posting about Halloween in January. But my lack of posts is not because there is nothing to blog about. Because there's a lot to blog about. A lot. We had a very busy fall here at lelu's house. Here's a few of the highlights. Some of them will get a post of their own eventually but most will not. We'll start with October.

Matt and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary.
Caveman turned 13.
Matt's final semester of nursing school was in full swing. His clinical schedule was insane and he still held down a full time job. We did not see him. At all.
Caveman auditioned for All State chorus. Didn't make it this time. He's looking forward to next year.
Baby started going to the nursery at church. Making Sundays much more pleasant for me.
Matt's mom came for a visit from Connecticut.
School and church parties for Halloween.
And of course Halloween.

Then in November.
A weekend trip to Ami's.
Getting ready for the primary program.
Christmas shopping.
Matt is still crazy busy.
I'm thinking about starting an etsy shop. Bought lots of fabric and made lots of blankets. There will definitely be more to come on this.
Thanksgiving. Brent and Tracy came down with their kids and spent the day. We fried our turkey and ate very well. It was a great day.
November went by very fast. And is a total blur to me. I'm sure there were lots of other things that happened too. On to December...

We decorated for Christmas.
The girls had their Holiday Concert.
Matt's mom came.
We had our piano recital. A Polar Express recital. Complete with hot chocolate and Santa's sleigh bells.
Baby learned to say no. And he says it very well.
Matt took his final exams.
Matt's dad came.
My parents came.
Matt Graduated!!!! He was elected by his class to speak at graduation. He did an awesome job.
We had a party.
Caveman had a Holiday Concert.
We went to Memphis.
Kirk came home from his mission.
We came home from Memphis. For just two days. I made Christmas pj's. Seven pairs.
Went to a Christmas Partay.
We went to Alabama to spend Christmas with my family. ALL of them. Twenty kids. Twelve adults. One recently returned missionary. All under one roof.
Spent the wee hours of Christmas Eve morning in the emergency room with Matt. He has an ulcer. One that bleeds a lot apparently.
Still had a wonderful Christmas.
Kids had a lot of play dates and sleepovers.
Spent New Years Eve with good friends.

This week...
Sent the kids back to school.
Took Baby to the doctor. He has two ear infections and a sinus infection. Poor baby.
Lost two and a half hours of my life to the DMV.
Went to Maggiano's for the first time. Celebrated Davin's birthday with the Jagnandan's. That place was amazing. We ate ridiculous amounts of food and still somehow managed to bring home enough to feed a complete meal to our ENTIRE family. And it was sooo delicious. And the company was good too.
Today was a snow day. The kids got two days of school in then lucked out with a three day weekend. And boy oh boy it is cold!

So those are the highlights. Of course there was lots of driving kids to and fro, school projects, sick kiddos and the like to add the craziness. Baby keeps learning more words and Rockstar keeps losing teeth. And life is good. Really good. And I am blessed. And grateful.

Halloween

Better late than never right? Halloween was great this year. Cold and wet but still great. We went Trick or Treating with the Marlers. Then went to Red Robin for dinner, a fun tradition we started last year. After dinner we made a stop at the Pirate Ship before heading home to bed. Caveman is too cool for us and did his own thing this year. We all had a lot of fun and had TONS of candy to show for it.

I made most of the costumes this year. Cowboy's was a leftover from when Caveman was his age. And Baby's was a hand me down from Cowboy. So all I had to do was make an orange m&m, a pirate costume and a seventies super hero. No problem right? Like usual, I was pinning stuff together on the way out the door but they all looked great.



Baby was going through a serious peek a boo phase at the time.

Red Ribbon Week

It's the week at school when the kiddos get to dress up. There is a different theme each day. My kids dress up sometimes. Sometimes they don't. But this year Caveman REALLY got excited for tacky day.



Lookin good Caveman. Lookin good!

Teenage Caveman

So it happened. On the fourth of October I became the mother of a teenager. Crazy. Months later, I'm still not sure how it happened. But it did. Here's the rundown...

With a birthday in the first week of October, it falls on Conference weekend pretty often. He went to priesthood session on Saturday night, got home late and stayed up until midnight so he could turn thirteen and open a facebook account. Then he had to take a cool profile picture. Then edit the cool profile picture then search for friends and request friends. And he was up really late.

We spent his birthday watching General Conference. Then had his birthday dinner (he requested stir-fry). Then he took a nap on the couch. That hasn't happened since he was like two.



While he was napping I made cupcakes. Super chocolaty chocolate cupcakes.



He really likes chocolate so the cupcakes were chocolate with chocolate chips with chocolate frosting with chocolate sprinkles.



Yeah, it was a lot of chocolate.

We sang Happy Birthday,



He blew out the candles,



Then he opened his presents. He really wanted a cell phone.



We gave him some chocolate. Then told him he could have another present if he could find it. SO the girls helped him and they found it pretty quick.



He was very excited.



Over the next ten days he racked up 1500 text messages on that phone. And it this point in time I think it has permanently fused to his hand. Oh, the joys of having a teenager in the house.

Happy Birthday Caveman!!! We love you!!!!

And baby LOVED your cupcakes.

Conversation with Cowboy

The Cowboy and I have great conversations on the way to school every morning. Here's a bit of one that took place the other day.

Cowboy: Hey, Mom, why don't buwds get wolectwocuted when they stand on the powuh lines?

Me: Why don't they get what?

Cowboy: Uuumm...Wolectwocuted. That's a weally hawd wuwd to say.

Conversation with Cowboy

Today Cowboy and Rockstar stayed home from school. They were sick over the weekend but went to school yesterday. Then this morning they both said their throats hurt so I let them stay home.

They should have gone to school.

But, they had fun together. Here's a bit of what I overheard...

Rockstar: Do you want to play house?

Cowboy: Yeah, let's pwetend we awe going to Chuck E. Cheese and we have coupons.

I'm rubbing off on him I guess.

Then later while I was sorting laundry...

Cowboy: Hey mom, we awe playing house and we awe in Connecticut and we awe dwiving and the woads awe icy so we awe dwiving cwazy.

Then I came inside from mowing the back yard. The bar stools were lined up in the middle of the kitchen floor and there were play-do creations arranged on each of them.

Me: What are you guys making?

Cowboy: We awe playing that show wewhe you make da food fowh da jugdes den dey tell you to pack yowh knives and go.

Ahh...Top Chef. Got it.

So yeah, they should have been at school. But it was fun having them home. Now, let's see if they're sick again when it's time to clean up all their messes.

A Tutorial

So, someone wanted to know how I made the appliqued pillows. So here's the tutorial. It will probably be long. And there is probably a better way to do them. But this how I did them. Oh, and I just need to say that I have been loving sewing lately. I've been getting a lot done too. I'll have to post some of my little projects soon. And now, lets make an appliqued pillow.


First choose what your going to put on your pillow. I love this fabric. It's so fun. It's from IKEA. On this pillow I am using the lion and the giraffe.





Cut out your shape. It helps to have really sharp scissors.



On the smaller details, like the giraffes tail and horns, I left some of the background fabric.



Next, you need to cut out your pillow. I used a pattern for mine but you don't really have to have one.



If you don't use a pattern you need to make sure that your corners curve in a bit. If you leave perfectly square corners your finished pillow will have pointy corners.



Once you have both sides of your pillow cut out, iron them and arrange your applique on the top piece.



Then you need to pull out your fusible web. I just had the kind that comes on a roll. But I have 5 kids, so it is not longer on the roll.



But it still works. I stretch the fusible web across the longest part of the applique.



Then I cut it (or tear it). Then I fold half of the appleque back, and put the piece of fusible web under it.



Then flip it back down and iron it. Then just keep ironing pieces between the fabric until it's all stuck down. (You can also buy fusible webbing in sheets and cut it to fit your shape. I was just using what I had.)



Then have your cute son hold it up to make sure it's all stuck down good.



Now it's time to sew. You need to set your machine on a small zig zag stitch.



Oh, and you might want to set your laptop behind your sewing machine and listen to your favorite Pandora station too.



I always start in a corner if I can.



You might want to go slow to make sure that you stiches are close together and nice and smooth. The straight parts are easy but eventually you'll have to go around a curve or turn a corner.



When I get to a corner, I lift the foot and turn the fabric. Just make sure you don't leave too much of a gap because it will make the fabric bunch up.



I just go really slow around curves guiding the fabric the direction it needs to go. This fabric is pretty thin and puckered quite a bit in some spots.



So you need to iron.



The iron will smooth it out a lot. I still had a lot a bunching around the curvy parts on this one. Once the pillow if stuffed you'll barely notice though.

Then if you're me, your baby will wake up and you'll have to take a break. You probably already know how, but I'll show you how to put the pillow together later.