Not so resolute resolutions

I never really make resolutions. Maybe because I know I won't follow through with them. I am the world's best procrastinator. Really. If I could make a resolution for this year that wouldn't have to actually happen until 2020, I might make one. I might just procrastinate about making a resolution and then never make one.

Rather than make a resolution or set goals for the coming year, I'd rather think about the past years and the difference in my life. Sunday in church we sang a song called Overcome by Desperation Band. The song says, "we will overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the words of our testimony."

Four years ago we found out that we were pregnant with our first princess. A few weeks later we found out that my hormone levels were too low to support a pregnancy. We had to have an ultrasound to see if the baby was alive. While everyone else in the medical field doubted, we believed and saw a beating heart. In march we will celebrate her fourth birthday. She wants a Ni Hao Ki-lan party. (That's a Chinese cartoon on Nick Jr.)

Three years ago we found out that even though we had a four month old, we were pregnant again. Welcome princess #2, lover of all things frog and monkey.

Two years ago we started talking about baby no. 3 but two years and way too much medical intervention later... we're trusting on the words of our testimony. During the times like these, the words of my testimony bring me ultimate peace.

The past year has flown by so quickly that I can barely remember it. We went from a little girl with no hair to crazy curls, stepped up into a minivan, evacuated from another hurricane, learned the art of traveling with potty training preschoolers, won a medal at my first cake competition, and fell more in love with my husband.

Now it's on to conquer the world and most of all, to add to the words of my testimony.

Happy 2009! I feel old(er)......

Christmas Morning

Christmas was great. The princesses are at the age where it is still so fun. We do not celebrate Santa in our house. Christmas is reserved for Jesus' birth, not some fat man that eats all our cookies. We chose to scale down on the gifts this year and only bought them three presents each. They were all smaller presents and their grandparents bought them one big gift to share, a dollhouse. My dad also chose to get them all educational gifts, which they loved.

This is the dollhouse that they play with non-stop. Princess Goofy even took the dollhouse babies to the park with us today.

We're teaching her early that it's all about product placement.

His Royal Highness and Princess Goofy playing with the new monkey of the family.

Princess Goofy showing me her mouthful of chocolate while wearing her beautiful new coat. Just in case you weren't aware, chocolate stains badly. This only gave me a minor heart attack until someone was able to quickly remove the coat. Crisis averted. I know kids get stains on things but the coat just needs a little more time of perfection first. My aunt and cousin sends the best coats from Chicago. They are always so beautiful.

They also sent sparkly purses. It's like they have Princess girly girl down to a T!

The hair! This is the normal morning hair for Princess Goofy. This hair fits her just as much as sparkles and glamour fits princess girly girl.

I hope everyone had a great christmas as well.

Confession of the week

I am terrified to clean out our gas oven. It's the truth. I won't do it. His Royal Highness does it for me when the little crusty bits on the bottom start talking back to us but that's really all it gets cleaned. I never had a gas oven or stove before moving to houston and I am more than convinced that I will blow this whole place up if I get in there to clean it. HRH usually even waits until I am gone to clean the oven because I think he'll blow us up too. So if you come over and my oven is a mess, feel safe that you won't be blown up that day.

Here's my confession for the day and now I feel better that I haven't blogged in over a week.

I'll have some christmas pictures up when I find my USB cord.

Zoo Trauma

Today we took the girls to the Zoo. It was a perfect day to go to the zoo. The weather was perfect, mid 70's and cloudy. It had rained earlier in the morning so the zoo was empty. The girls really only looked at the first few animals and after that, only played in the puddles with sticks and leaves. But that gave His Royal Highness and myself some time together in peace to look at the animals.

We ate lunch in a cafe at the center of the zoo. There are a ton of pigeons in this open cafe but there was one extremely brave pigeon. It just took a seat on our table and ate Princess Goofy's lunch. We chased it away but it kept coming back for more. You can tell by the look on her face that she really enjoyed it. :) She was actually shaking and terrified. Then some other birds stole her pizza and we thought that she would never recover. She did, dont' worry but if you're at a park and see a kid running for her life away from a pigeon, it might just be our princess Goofy.


I haven't been a woman of leisure the entire week. Actually until tuesday I was so busy that I could barely take time to clean. What a bummer! I had to complete the gifts for all my nephews and niece so I could mail them on tuesday. Here's a picture of my neice's gift. It's a onsie that's personalized for her 1st birthday, new years eve. I also made a tie tu-tu for her to wear with her shirt. I will post a how to on the tutu soon. I also completed a tool belt for my nephew that I forgot to take a picture of. Now I'm preparing for my families christmas but have been under the weather so I'm fighting through it.

No matter what, I CAN'T WAIT FOR CHRISTMAS!

Princess Goofy steals the show

The girls performed one song with their preschool class today at church. Princess Goofy did not fail to deliver. Princess Girly Girl wanted to run off stage in tears but was a trooper and stuck it out.

enjoy

Oh Christmas Balls, Oh Christmas Balls... how I love great deals!

I was standing in line at Hobby Lobby and overheard the woman in front of me talking about the fall 90% off section. 90%!!! So I politely asked where this section is and headed off to find it. It was a small section, just some paper plates and napkins and tons of fall flowers. I did pick up a ton of napkins for only 59 cents but then I couldn't figure out what I could do with all these fall flowers when it was christmas time. I looked at it for a few minutes before I figured that I could make big fluffy snow balls with the white flowers but I couldn't pass up the red ones either. I grabbed several bunches and headed back to the cash register.

Several days later I grabbed glitter and glue from wal-mart and came home to experiment.

Here's how I made the christmas balls:

Supplies -

glue gun

glitter

glitter or craft glue with a brush

flowers

I started off by pulling the flowers off their stems. Next I simply put glue on the back of one of the flowers and added another flower back. I kept adding flowers until all the backs met and there was no more room for another flower. I think I used five flowers for the red ball. There was a lot of hot glue in the middle of the flowers so it wasn't setting up as quickly as usual. I held the ball cupped in my hands and gently pushed it back in to a ball shape until the glue was set. You could probably put a small styrofoam ball in the middle and glue the flowers onto that if this will bug you. I just skipped that step because I'm a simple girl.

Now that I have the ball shape, I brushed glue over 1/2 of the ball and then sprinkled glitter all over it. Then I did the other half and finally rolled the ball in the glitter that had pooled on the paper below to make sure every inch of glue was covered.

Let them dry and Taa-Daa!, a beautiful Christmas ball.

I made several of the red and white ones each covered with glitter but it's harder to see the glitter on the white ones in the pictures. Trust me, it's there.

I polished up a silver platter and placed all the balls in the platter. Then it found it's new seasonal home on my coffee table. Yesterday I added red shiny balls into the platter for a different texture but of course, I don't have a picture of it. Trust me, it's fabulous.

I really love this look and so does the princess sneaking into this picture. I love how fluffy and sparkly it looks.

Monkey Shirt

Princess Goofy loves monkeys. I found her sister the perfect dress for thanksgiving at the resale shop but I couldn't find a dress for Princess Goofy. We finally found her a brown skirt that would match her sister's outfit but couldn't find a top for her that would fit her personality. So I knew immediately what I could do.... a MONKEY applique. Because of time constraints, I just used some regular felt that I had here at the house. It worked great!

All you have to do is cut out the shapes that you want and sew them down! No turning down edges, no interfacing.. nothing... Monkeys are basic shapes. Just a ton of ovals and circles.

I actually lightly glued the shapes down with fabric glue just to hold them in place while I sewed around them. I could have used pins but the glue was just there. That's how I work, it was there, I used it.

She has now worn it several times and it's got a few piles on it but it's holding up well.

The perfect shirt for my monkey.

New Stuff Coming..

It is coming.. I promise.. I have pictures on my camera waiting to be downloaded. The last trip for thanksgiving has just worn me out! So I'm going in slow motion. I'm way behind on my homemade christmas gifts. If you get yours in march, just accept it as norm and go with the flow. thanks.

Blog lovin' Mama

Today is Sew Mama Sew's (http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=650) giveaway day. So many blogs have signed up to give out free gifts. It's amazing. I love finding new blogs.

I will admit it, I stumble. I have my stumble set to crafts. I stumble a lot. Yes, I do fall a lot but stumble is a button on firefox (internet browser) that pulls up pages with your interest.

So here are two great blogs that I found.

The first one is http://www.ohfrasson.com/ . I found this one by stumbling awhile back but I still love it. Her quilts inspire me.

The second one I just found today called Mommy and Beyond. (http://www.mommyandbeyond.blogspot.com/)

I love the colors she uses. Look at the green placemat pillows. I am going to dream about these tonight. She also has a slight fabric addiction kinda like someone else you might know... maybe me... I'm not ready to admit it yet.

So go check out Sew Mama Sew, it's a great site! I hope you find a new blog to follow today!

Bambi's Revenge

My Mother-in-law asked me to make a birthday cake for my father-in-law and cousin Matt for Thanksgiving. I knew that a whole cake probably wouldn't make the trip in one piece so I made a gumpaste topper for the cake. I made the deer and furniture using gumpaste I had colored with gel colors. Gumpaste is just a fancy sugar dough that dries extremely hard. It is technically edible but it would be a teeth breaker. You can buy it at your local craft stores or use a recipe from the internet. Making your own usually requires Tylose and Guclose, which can be hard to find.

I made the chair and lamp first and let them dry hard. Next I made the deer and the accesories on the chair. It may be hard to see but there is a little remote, newspaper, and big red pillow behind the deer. I made the horns in advance and layed them in bottle caps to dry into the rounded shape. Finally I made the wood looking floor by covering a cake board with marbalized fondant and cutting the boards into it. I placed everything onto the cake board and packed it into a big box with no slip grip cloth underneath. The cake topper made the long trip with ease.

When it came time to assemble the cake I frosted the entire cake, placed the topper on the top and then piped around the edge of the topper so that it would look like part of the cake. The one thing you must do is make sure the cake is level since you will have a perfectly flat cake board sitting on top of the cake.

I didn't have a lot of my supplies with me when I made the cake so it didn't come out as professional as I would have liked. However, everyone there still loved the cake.

Now go buy some gumpaste and see what you can come up with. Revert back to the good old days of playdough. It's ok, I won't tell anyone.