Super Cute Messenger Bag

With only a month left of school to go last spring, my daughter's backpack just pretty much disintegrated.  Straps, handles, and zippers were breaking left and right. I decided she couldn't wait until next year for a new one and really didn't want to shell out a bunch of money (sheesh, backpacks are expensive) for another one that will fall apart. So I started a hunt online to see if I could find an easy tutorial for some sort of bag I could make.  After much searching I found this fabulous messenger bag . 

It was perfect! The tutorial was very thorough and easy to follow, and I'm probably maybe a beginner-intermediate sewer. My only problem came with the interfacing. I had about as heavy as you can get interfacing and for-the-life-of-me, I could not get the handle turned. I had to peel the interfacing off and put on a lighter weight interfacing. I also had a little trouble in the same way with the flap, but eventually got it turned and luckily my tear is on the inside. I just told my daughter not to ever let her teacher see the inside of the bag. :) It was a fun little project and only took a few hours. Now another daughter has just informed me she wants one for school this year, too. Mark that down as one more thing to jam into the next week and a half.

Oh, a couple other notes to mention, the bag is big enough to fit a folder in (exact dimensions are in tutorial), perfect for a grade-schooler, but not really big enough for my older jr. high daughter (who REALLY wants one) who's bringing home lots of books and stuff. I also made the flower from this tutorial as a pin so I can remove it to wash the bag if I need to.


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Family Vacation

The summer is coming to an end WAY to quickly, and every day seems jam packed for the rest of it.  That's why it's taken me so long to post about our trip.  So in between batches of beans I'm canning right now, I thought I'd share about our little family vacation.

A few weeks ago, in July, we packed up and headed up to Montana for a little getaway.  We went to Crystal Park on the first day and had a lot of fun searching in the dirt for little crystals.  Bill would dig and fill the shaker box, then Cheyenne, Natalie, and I would shake out all the sandy dirt. Then Billy, Jon, Chloe, and Maddie would join us and we'd sift and sort through what was left and hopefully find some crystals. It was quite a lot of work, but we had a great time.  The little kids would also wander around looking for crystals just on the ground.  Every shiny rock they saw they'd pick up and come ask us, "Is this a crystal?"  After a few hours of that and hiking around this mountain side, they were all pretty tired and started asking when we were going to the hotel. We ended up with quite a few little crystals and a couple pretty good sized ones.

 

The view from the mountain side.  Not a very good picture, but Cheyenne is holding some of the bigger crystals (we found a couple bigger ones) and you can see more in her bucket.

 So we headed into Butte to our hotel with a pool.  The little kids were beyond excited about this - a pool!! That's were we spent the next couple hours and I think that was the highlight of the trip for the little 4.  Although getting to watch TV while they were in bed was pretty exciting for them, too.  The next morning we headed to Lewis and Clark Caverns and took the tour there.  I'd forgotten what a hike it is up to the opening to the caves.  On the way up as we were really getting our workout in, Bill and Natalie were questioning whether I'd signed us up for a "Fat Camp" vacation, especially after the hiking the day before, and all the walking we were going to do the next day, too.  I think it's the first vacation that I didn't gain a pound. :)  Anyway, the caverns were really fun and the kids all enjoyed seeing all the formations and stuff way down underground.  After that we had a picnic lunch and then drove to Virgina City.  Virgina City is an old mining ghost town.  They have the old stores and buildings set up and displayed just like during the mining boom times.  The kids thought that was pretty cool.  We had some good homemade ice cream there, too, and of course the kids thought that was the best.

Fun in the car!

That night we stayed in a little town called Sheridan and the girls and I had some fun walking around taking pictures of some cool churches around the block.  The next day we headed to Yellowstone Park.  Lucky for us, we had perfect weather for all our walking and hiking around.  It barely got up to 80 degrees one day and was never too hot or miserable (although the kids thought so at times.)  As we were driving into the park, I asked Bill if he wanted to hit all the spots on the way to Old Faithful or go straight to Old Faithful and then hit all the stops on the way back.  He decided we needed to go to Old Faithful first since we didn't know when it was going to go off.  So we get into the parking lot and start walking to the site.  We sit there for a few minutes and finally hear someone say it wasn't supposed to go off for another 45 min. to an hour.  Bill decided we weren't going to sit there that long and that we should go get lunch.  We quickly went to eat some lunch, rushing the kids the whole time, and then hurried back out to the site.  Just as we're almost there, we see bunches of people heading back our way.  Yup, we had just missed it!  Well, needless to say, Bill was not happy and wasn't going to wait around for another 90 min.or so.  So we left and stopped at all the other sites on the lower loop.  We'll have to try Old Faithful again next year. We were planning on heading up to the waterfall and some of the other sites up that way, but then the kids all started asking if we could go home.  We were all pretty hot and tired by then, so Bill and I weren't going to object if they wanted to be done.  We stopped in West Yellowstone and did a little shopping mostly for polished rocks (or poshed rocks as my little sister used to call them) and drove home.

Yellowstone

   It was a quick 3 days, but we really had a fun time together.  Best of all we have some great memories we can talk about for a long time to come.

Transformation of a Boiler Tub

Long ago, my mom snagged this old boiler tub from my grandma. She just thought it was too neat to let my grandma throw it away. Fast forward several years to the early 90's, and my mom redecorated her family room. My sister, in all her craftiness glory, decided to make this old ugly boiler tub something cute and fabulous for the new room. So she painstakingly painted and stenciled away and then filled it with a beautiful eucalyptus and floral arrangement. That lasted quite a few years until the grandkids had thrown one too many footballs or other toys into the arrangement (and dug in after them), and it was looking pretty sad.  So my mom took all the floral stuff out and used it to stack wood for their fireplace in it. Fast forward another few years and when my parents replaced their wood burning stove for a gas fireplace, no need for wood anymore, this cute old thing got shoved into a corner waiting for its new life.  So this winter, when I getting really tired of my kids constantly leaving blankets strewn about the room, I asked her if I could have it. It was perfect for blankets!  But since we had just redecorated our family room, it couldn't stay in this shape. I really wished it was in its old dingy metal state for that vintage feel. I thought about stripping it down to see if I could uncover that, but didn't know if I'd ever get all that pretty blue off or what condition it would be in when I did, if I would really like it that way, and finally decided it was too much work. So I decided to try my hand at spray painting and use up some paint I had left from a shelf I painted a while ago. I primed the whole thing, then started in on the real painting, finding that painting the inside was very tricky.  (Anyone have any tips for that?)  It was supposed to be a copper hammered finish, but it never really got that hammered look to it, but I still like it.  It's the perfect addition to our room to hold blankets, my magazines, my cross-stitch project that someday I'll finish, and anything else that get stuffed in there. Now if I could just get my kids to remember to put their blankets back in it I'd be doing great!

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Chinese Cabbage Salad

For a couple years now, we've had the tradition of almost every Sunday we grill hamburgers for lunch/dinner (I only cook one meal on Sunday. :) )  It started while my parents were on their mission in Africa and just mentioned once that they did this, cooked hamburgers for lunch every Sunday.  So to feel like we were connected to them, I started doing the same thing.  Plus, I love not having to slave over a big "Sunday Dinner" and decided to keep things nice and simple.  We don't do it EVERY week, I do still cook other things, too, but my kids are so disappointed when I do.  So, the majority of the time, Summer, Winter or any time in between, it doesn't really matter, we'll be out grilling.  However, we're running a little low on the hamburger in the freezer, that's a different story, and I'm trying to make what's left last for the rest of the summer at least.  So now I've added hot dogs to the Sunday dinner rotation.  The kids still think it's awesome to have a cookout each Sunday, hot dogs are even easier than hamburgers so I'm happy, and we usually cook some brats, so Bill doesn't mind either.  So as I was waiting for Bill to get home on Sunday, I decided to throw together a salad to go with it. I made Chinese Cabbage Salad and it was the perfect addition. I forget how good this salad is!  Now I'm NOT a fan of cabbage, but I've found that this is delicious with napa cabbage.

Chinese Cabbage Salad
In a large bowl combine:
1 head cabbage, chopped (I like napa cabbage, use 2 heads of napa)
1 bunch green onions, chopped
2 c. cubed chicken
2 pkg. chicken or oriental ramen noodles, crumbled and toasted in oven with 1/4 c. slivered almonds

Dressing:
1/2 c. oil
2 Tbsp. sugar
3 Tbsp vinegar
1/2 tsp. pepper
2-3 Tbsp. soy sauce or the packet of soup flavoring (I usually do 1 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce AND the seasoning packet.
Some versions say to let it refrigerate for a while, but the noodles will soak up some of the sauce and get soft. I like my noodles crunchy, so I don't let it sit for long, if at all, before I eat it.

I only made a half batch on Sunday because I knew it would be pretty much just Bill and I eating it, and when I went to eat some again later, Bill had eaten the whole bowl. It's that good!


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Happy 4th of July

LAND THAT I LOVE!

 We had a great 4th of July this year, pretty low key, but a lot of fun. Bill's objective was to come up with some great idea so we didn't have to go to the parade (I love the parade, he doesn't.)  So his brilliant idea was to take all the kids to the movies.  We slept in and then had a big delicious, relaxed breakfast (things you can't do if you're trying to make it to the parade.) Then at around 11:30 we went to the movies; Bill taking the little three to Cars 2, and I took the older three to Transformers 3 (since Bill had already seen it.)  Everyone had a great time at their movies, and we all gave both shows 2 thumbs up.  Then we went home, the kids played in the pool while the rest of us read or dozed or Bill decided to change a sprinkler head. :) Then we grilled some hamburgers, ate potato salad, and played/relaxed some more until it was time for fireworks.  Sparklers were awesome as always, only about one screamer, and the grand finale of a 7-minute whopper was pretty good.  We also had a good show from the neighbors fireworks, well, through and around a big tree in our way.  When we were finished, we tried to glimpse the moon through our new telescope (the moon hasn't been up since we got it), but we missed it.  So we tried looking at some stars, but there were just too many cars coming down the road then.  We did go out the next day, however, and the moon was AWESOME!  Anyway, the kids went to bed very tired, a little sticky, and smelling like mosquito spray mixed with sunscreen - all signs of a fun filled day.  I am just so thankful for a country that allows us these freedoms and a sincere thank you to all the men and women, present and past, who protect those rights for us.

New Skirts From Old Shirts

While surfing in blog land, one of my very favorite places to visit is Make it and Love it.  She is awesome!! Her tutorials are so easy to follow and very complete.  Anyway, I had found this tutorial a while ago and really wanted to try it out, especially since our little Chloe is showing a fondness for wearing skirts to school or to play in.  So fast forwards a few weeks later, and as I was bagging up another load to take to the DI, I came across the perfect shirts - two matching shirts of Cheyenne and Natalie's.  Perfect, if I messed it up, I wasn't out anything, anyway.  Then I remembered the GIANT stash of material my mother-in-law has, specifically knits,  and headed to her house to try and find something.  After some searching, I think she's saved every scrap of anything she's ever made, I found the perfect material for the turquoise shirt, but nothing for the pink one.  I did have to buy a little piece of pink knit; the total expense for two skirts, a couple bucks!  Now, I'm not a super seamstress, I'd barely call myself a sewer of any sort, but this was really easy.  It took me about 1 1/2 hours, and a good portion of that was reading my sewing machine manual and playing with different settings and stitches.  My skirt isn't near as full as the tutorial, but my shirts were only a child's size large to begin with; it worked, though. End result two CHEAP skirts, a proud momma, and two HAPPY girls. YEAH!

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Birthday x3

After Billy's birthday and baptism, the fun continued with Mother's day, Bill's birthday, and our 16th wedding anniversary, boy time flies.  Then we were busy with the end of school stuff, band concerts, kindergarten program, oh and the fun of driver's ed every day after school for Cheyenne.  By then Chloe, Maddie, and Jon's birthday was rapidly approaching.  This brought up a lot of debate and question regarding how to handle their birthday.  Do we have 3 seperate parties, a boy party and a girl party, do it all on one day or celebrate on different days, and more.  We finally decided to be very brave and do one big party, inviting their whole kindergarten class!  What was I thinking?! 

So we decided on a carnival theme, fun for both boys and girls. We did a lot of planning and prep, and then called in more help. We had my parents and Bill's parents, my niece and nephew's - Ashtyn, Rhett, and Kade, and Cheyenne, Natalie, Bill, all manning the games. I moved the kids from game to game, took pictures and laughed a lot. We ended up only having 9 kids come, including our 3, but that was the perfect number. We were a little worried about the weather, again, as the big black clouds moved in and out all day. But the weather held out and the kids had a blast, I think. After the kids all went home, the rest of us relaxed, enjoyed a pop and then the rain started.

This pinata WOULD NOT BREAK!  Every kid took a turn or two at it, then they all grabbed hold of a string to pull it open, and it still wouldn't open.  So Natalie took matters into her own hands and got a metal bat and went at it.  Nothing.  Finally we just dropped it on the ground and Cheyenne ripped it open, and she had to work at it.  That was one tough clown head! :)

The next day the kids enjoyed being sang to in primary and getting their own bags of popcorn.  Then we had some pizza for lunch, and another party with the family later that night. When 3 kids have a birthday at the same time, it's like Christmas all over again, paper and presents everywhere.  It's a lot of fun! We're sure lucky to have three such wonderful kiddos in our family.



Three happy 6 yr. olds (and only half the presents.)