Minnie Mouse and Strawberry Shortcake

Both my girls love to play dress up.  They knew what they wanted to be for Halloween for over a year and let me know often.  I had no idea how I was going to pull either of these costumes off and I didn't want to spend the $25-$35 plus for each of the costumes that never seem worth the asking price.  I set out to find a pattern of some sort for Strawberry Shortcake and found a blog here that was perfect.  I had to make some modifications.  I could not find a visor to save my life so I used a hat and cut and sewed it back together to fit her little head.  Also, on the leggings I used a pair of her old tights that had a hole in it.  Sewed the hole up and painted stripes on them.  Macey stayed by my side watching the creation as it came together and could hardly contain herself.  She is absolutely in love with her costume!

Now Maryn's costume was a little more difficult because I did not have a pattern specifically for the Minnie Mouse Costume so I took a dress pattern from Simplicity and made it to look like the classic Minnie Mouse. She has wanted to be Minnie Mouse ever since her friend was Minnie a few years back. I learned a lot from making this dress and it's fun to see her twirl around in her fluffy skirt. My favorite part of this whole dress was the petticoat skirt underneath. And this is not your fall apart costume you paid twenty bucks from the store. I actually may take this pattern and make their Christmas dresses because the cost of the dress ended up being just around $18. And there are a lot of ways you can modify the design.

For the ears I re-purposed a head band that was used in years past as kitty ears.  I love it when you can use old things to create new cool stuff!  I un-stitched the sides to round out the ears and hand sewed it back together then made a bow for the front.  Super glued the bow to the ears so they weren't floppy.  Thanks to hubby for the idea because I was stumped on what to do and was ready just to pay $15 dollars for a pair of ears I saw in the store even though it was a pink bow.  He has patiently allowed me to work on these dresses so I can get happy faces like the ones below.  Why do I beat myself up making things like this?  I hope that I can make my kids childhood memories magical when they look back.  For that purpose is why I do this.  

   

The Cocoa Bandit

A few weeks back Macey came running downstairs  letting me know that Mason had gotten into the Chocolate.  I was thinking Chocolate Chips...no big deal.  So I casually walked up stairs and Macey pointed out the obvious and said, "See Mommy, he got into the chocolate".  And oh yes he got into the chocolate but it wasn't the chocolate chips.  There was baking cocoa everywhere!  And this was a container that I had just bought so it was full to the brim.  There was cocoa piled in the pantry.  There was cocoa footprints and hand prints leading out of the kitchen.  I followed the trail upstairs where I found Buddy sitting in the bathroom sink trying to wash himself off.  For days I was finding little hand and foot prints where he had ventured through the house.  When I thought I had gotten everything cleaned the next day Matt was in the bathroom and said please tell me that is chocolate on the toilet handle.  I could fortunately say yes that it was indeed chocolate.

I of course had to document the occasion so I grabbed the camera.  The pictures don't do the mess justice.

You can see his face is splotched with cocoa.  I told him to looked ashamed and this is what he gave me below.

And this is him proud of his handy work.

  Boys are really hard to keep up with!

Still Alive

Hello everyone!  I'm still alive, I promise.  I have been SOOO busy.  I really do not enjoy cramming my day full of stuff but I've had no other choice.  Hopefully after tomorrow I can show you what I've been doing for the past month or so.  I just have to do a few finishing touches involving a glue gun, needle and thread and I think I can call this project done!  I still need to write about Macers first friend birthday party too.  Here's crossing my fingers to be finished for tomorrow...just in time for the Halloween Carnival.

Box Elder Bugs

If you live in Idaho or Utah you know what a box elder bug is or would rather not be associated with them.  Even though they are relatively harmless...they are creepy little bugs.  They had a news story on KSL and I commented on it and come to find out later my comment was on NBC News.  I thought is was kind of funny because it was a pointless comment but it showed up with a handful of other commentors on the national news site here.  Mine was the comment about driving in the car and yes it did happen where I was driving and I looked on the dash and something just didn't look right.  When it moved I freaked out and found the nearest place to pull over.  Remember that scene in Black Sheep when they go out screaming out of the cop car screaming BEES.  Yah, that was me flailing around!

In Mason's Words

We have been struggling with Buddy's speech.  At his 2 year check up it's just what you want to hear that your son is behind in his speech.  Tell us something we didn't know.  Because of his non-expressive speech not being present we have battled with being able to understand him.  I was starting to worry that maybe there was something wrong but then he tries to say his words.  You ask him to say please and he says Plea then you try to get him to say the second half SE and he'll do it separately just not together.  He's only 2 and he'll come up to shirts I'm wearing and perfectly tell me which letters are on my shirt but the kid won't piece two words together or one for that matter.  Yesterday, we were celebrating sissy's birthday party and it was during his naptime and he knew that we were having fun downstairs with all of sissy's friends and he wanted to be apart of it.  We finally let the boy out and during the cupcake time he was anxiously trying to find a place to sit running back and forth and I asked him if he wanted a cupcake.  In his best monotone little voice he said his first sentence "I EAT CAKE"  I guess I just needed something that he liked to have something to talk about.