Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Church humanitarian project & Cousin Day

A few weeks ago the Relief Society President caught up to me at the school while I was waiting for the kids to come out. She asked if I'd be interested in helping sew some stuff for the current humanitarian project. Apparently she's seen the pictures I've posted on facebook. I told her I'd be willing to give it a go. I've done humanitarian stuff for church before. That however, involved quilts & tying them. This time the project involved making baby gowns out of knit. 1-I haven't sewn on knit...at all.. It kinda scares me because it's so stretchy. 2-I don't usually do clothing projects without INTENSE supervision by my mother. Case in point - I started 2 dresses when we lived in Ephraim (1999-2001). I brought them home for help from mom one day. They are still unfinished! I found them again today & put them where I can hopefully finish them when I'm not pregnant anymore!
Once I got the projects home, I took them out of the bag for inspection (I had no idea what it was they wanted me to do). For the life of me I couldn't figure out the pattern directions or the pieces they'd cut out for me. So, when all else fails....take it to mom. So, I took my project to mom a day or so after I got it for help. Much to my surprise mom said she'd made these lots of times before and they were super easy. She showed me what to do and I thought I'd be set. So, that night I started on one. I got the arms put in, but when I went to put the ribbing in, I found that there was absolutely no way that was going to stretch as big as it needed to be. So, after a few days I went back to mom. She again showed me what to do. Instead of jumping on it that night though, I put it off. Travis was home & I don't generally get much sewing done then. So, it sat for a week and then Trav left and I thought to myself I'd better get those done...but, I had a baby shower and a birthday party to do. So, I put it off a little longer.
Finally last night I busted them out again. This time I got 2 of the 3 finished. I would have finished the 3rd, but I couldn't stand to sit at the table any more (my back was hurting). I finished the 3rd one tonight - mostly just because I know they need them on Sat. and I got a phone call earlier today telling me they'd be here to pick them up on Friday! So, here is a picture of 1 of the 3 baby gowns I made. In all honesty, I think I'd rather do quilts! These weren't quite as easy as they looked when mom showed me how to do them! They are cute though.
On Monday I didn't have to work since there wasn't any school. When my sister brought my niece over Friday night she said my nephew was dying to have a play date with Nash. She probably would have taken him home for a bit that night, but I had my aunt's little boy here for awhile too. So, Nash went over there for a few hours on Saturday and I told my sister that if she wanted to, she could bring the kids over on Monday while she was at work. Lucky for all 5 kids she took me up on my offer!
She dropped them off at 7:30 am and didn't get back until almost 5:30. Much to my pleasant surprise, there wasn't a single argument the ENTIRE day. They did polish off 3 boxes of fruit snacks (18 pouches), but hey, I think that's a small price to pay for happy, playing children for that many hours!
The boys played lots of Lego Batman and Lego Indiana Jones on the xbox. When they finally took a break, they decided to play....what else? Legos! Here is the naked trio in action.
When my niece and nephew were going to be here each day last summer I bought a TON of projects to keep them busy. One of the projects I bought was the sun catchers you paint. I bought quite a few of them because my kids love to paint them. The box of projects has just been sitting downstairs and every couple weeks my kids will ask if I'll bust it out. I haven't busted it back out yet..mostly because I didn't want to deal with it. But, while the cousins were here, we busted out the project box & painted sun catchers. Caleb did the two giraffes in case you were wondering! My niece and nephew also played with the beads that you put on plastic pegs and melt together with an iron (that's what the bright colored things to the right are). Nash & Jack did the fish. The girls did the butterflies. Now, to find a window that doesn't already have 20 of these things stuck to it!

The boys were also kind enough to take a break from the xbox long enough to give the girls a chance to practice their rock star skills. Jade was playing drums & Sam was singing. They are quite the duo those girls! I've had Beetles songs stuck in my head all day Monday & today because Rockband was played for so long!
This picture is of the boys painting their sun catchers. I love the look of concentration on Caleb's face. You can tell he SOOO wants to be one of the big boys like his brother. He was trying so hard to stay in the lines and not spill anything. He did "awesome" as he likes to say these days!

In other news, I made progress on my New Year's Resolutions today. I waddled downstairs and decided to start tackling my office again. The poor room has been in chaos since Trav started working on the boys' room down there in June. Today I was able to finish filing all my 2010 papers and bust out the new binders I bought for the 2011 papers to file. I also went through all my Lia Sophia stuff and found a ton of stuff that is unopened. I'm going to sell it to a girl I know or put it on ebay or ksl. I haven't done anything with it since 2009, so I'm pretty sure I'm done with it. Might as well get it out of the way! I also finally got all my sewing stuff that was in the family room downstairs in my office and all the scrapbook stuff that was in the family room back in my office! Now you can see both my desks and there's room to actually sit at the table and do something! I told Trav I can't move all my sewing stuff down there until he turns the outlets back on (he turned them off when he started sheetrocking in June). But, I'm excited to have a place to go down and work on catching up some baby books and scrapbook stuff! Samantha even helped (she was home sick from school today). She's super excited to get out all the new scrapbook kit stuff she got from my aunt for her birthday. She helpfully went through a bunch of scrapbook stuff I got from my sister in law and picked out what she wants for HER scrapbook collection. I think my husband might beat me if he knew I was encouraging that habit! Too bad!