Happy Halloween

to curl or not to curl

When a little kid really wants a costume, they will do any thing for it.

Mine wanted to be Glenda, the Good Witch, for Halloween. She wanted the curls and all. I really didn't want to do curls, but she cried that she wanted curls.

The part I am leaving out is that these are curlers that she would have to sleep on, the rollers to have. So, she cried until she got her way rollers in the hair.

How many little kids want to sleep on rollers? All of mine do. Crazy kids; crazy mom for doing it. If all three of them want curls, I am putting rollers in for over 2 hours -- close to three. The oldest takes the longest, then the middle kid, then the littlest one. At least this is the littlest so it was the quickest one to do. My kids have a lot of hair and it is long. Here are the results.

Yesterday in my post

Yesterday, in the post, came two small boxes, both were a gift from Tina Michelle at MJF.

There were 13 videos for my kids. They are all excited, especially the youngest. She said she wants to watch them all first to make sure they won't scare her sisters. The funny part about that statement is that she is the one who gets nightmares from movies, not her sisters. None of these look nightmarish to me. We didn't have any of these movies, so the kids are all excited and want a movie night to watch them all. I don't think that is going to happen since that would take a few days. Thank you, very much, Tina. I have a box to send to you. I will post a photo here after you get it to keep it a surprise. Thank you, again; the kids think they are great!

yo-yo friends

I have been asked by Newheart how to make a tutorial on how to make a yo-yo friend. So, I will start this and post it; should be up by Friday, if all goes as planned.

HALLOWEEN PHOTOS AAAAAAAAAAAHH!!!!

So you call the mall kid photo studio to have a sitting at 4:30.

They say, "Great; we have an opening." All is good; you think you will miss the mad rush on Halloween when everyone trick or treats at the mall. You get the kids ready and get there 15 minutes early so no one takes your spot.

At 5:45, "Oh, we can take your photo now." Only one person has taken photos in that whole time, and they had one kid ( four shots done). I have no clue why the wait.

We take photos; wait about 30 minutes to see them on the computer screen. Don't know what the photographer was thinking because they have a digital camera and should have been able see that my middle child's eyes where closed in all but two photos out of ten.

Wait another hour or more; take photos again as we wait for two other families to take their photos. Haven't a clue what three employees where doing while one was taking photos. Take photos again; now it is about 7:30 p.m. Another family takes photos.

So, in three hours of waiting and three times watching Disney's Robin Hood movie over and over, four families including ours have taken photos.

Now at 7:45, my pictures should be printed but they aren't because the machine just broke. Oh, when do you think it will be fixed? We don't know. We can mail you your photos in about seven days.

This is just ridicules. I just ordered 13 sheets plus a cd. So I say, "Fine; the kids and I are tired." They don't even offer a free photo, so I ask after all this and they say, "Oh, yeah, I guess you can have that."

I got them in my email already; just not cropped and formatted with words like I designed them to be, but oh, well, here is one. So much for the tradition of always having a new picture on the wall on Halloween day. I guess I will be fine with one on my blog for now.

Just so you know, I purposely left out the company name as they usually do a great job. So I really don't want to give them bad press because I like the company a lot and will use them again. I think they just had a bad day. Us, too!

Thank you for listening; I am better now.

Let the festivities begin

Looks like Halloween is here, and the fun has just begun.The kids are already going to parties.

Gift from Oregan Gal

In the post today I got a package from Oregon Gal at MJF.

It was supplies to make yo-yos, in sets of four so that they can be added to our table topper. I think they will be a lovely addition to it. Thank you, very much; the girls were all excited when they saw them. Hope to have them done and on in the next two weeks.

Etsy hair wraps (scarfs)

Hair Wraps

Four new hair wraps for etsy in three colors, burgundy, dusty pink, and rose (sort of mauvish).

They come in three different lengths:

1. Short, 40 inches long
2. Medium, 60 inches long
3. Long, 80 inches long

These will be posted at Vintage Threads, Inc. on etsy within the next hour.

1. They are all 1 1/4 inches wide
2. Hand crocheted
3. Made with vintage crochet thread (all the labels read boil fast not colorfast as people use to boil clothes to get them clean)
4. Each comes on a card to keep neat while shipping and can be used to keep them pressed and neat looking when not in use.

etsy romanian crochet needle lace bonnet

This is a handmade baby bonnet, size newborn to three months .

1. Hand-stitched needle lace filling stitches
2. Handmade Romanian Crochet Cord
3. Picot double-sided satin ribbon

Sure to be an heirloom piece in any family.
Machine washable; very strong lace. This item will be at Vintage Threads, Inc. etsy today.

etsy Preemie dress or doll dress

Preemie baby dress; doll dress; wall decoration.

1. Handmade from vintage 100% cotton pillow case
2. Machine embroidery, pink bow
3. Handmade antique tatting edging neck, sleeves, hem
4. Antique mother of pearl button closure
5. 2 Antique lace insertions on bodice and hem
6. Pink double-sided satin ribbon
7. White organza ribbon rose with green double-sided satin trim
8. Length 31 inches, neck to hem, 12 inches around waist, 5 inches around sleeves, 3 inches from neck to empire waist
9. Padded hanger included
   

Lovely dress for decoration on wall or vintage doll or that special gift for a person with a little preemie baby girl.

This item is listed at Vintage Threads, Inc. on etsy.

Etsy/ Wip quilt/ Meeting

Here is my WIP for Friday, and probably a long-time-to-come type of project.

I am in the process of straightening all these scraps of fabric. Turning them into this, on left, to be stored in clear totes until they can be cut and sewn and converted into this, below, partially-done quilt or table topper; haven't decided which it is going to be, yet. This is being hand pieced with the English paper piecing method. There actually is a pattern here. Each flower has a solid center surrounded by fabric in the same color family. It just looks random.


Join group on Flickr


New items for Vintage Threads, Inc., on Etsy will be posted on Saturday because I am in meetings all day today.

Pumpkin Decorating

Today, at school, the kids in First Grade decorated their pumpkins.

It isn't exactly carved, but it is cute, any way.

Alien ooze

On Monday my husband and kids were doing a Halloween experiment.

You get 1/4 cup cornstarch, 2 tablespoons water, green food coloring to desired color, and a pinch phosphorescent powder, then mix it all together. Then you charge it with a flash light and you have "Alien Ooze".

This is a fun experiment with kids because, if you put your fingers into the concoction slowly, it is liquid in state and sticks to you like liquid does. If you hit it hard with your fingers, your fingers can't even penetrate the surface of the mixture. The kids where real intrigued by the whole thing. The interesting part is that you can do both at the same time. One kid can hit it; at the same time another kid is putting their fingers in slowly, and both reactions are happening simultaneously, within inches of each other.

It's the great pumpkin...

In our family, the "Great Pumpkin" is my Vavo.

Yesterday, while I was out, a package came. One of Vavo's junk boxes, as she likes to call them.

It's main theme was Halloween, sprinkled with Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the Chinese Moon festival, 4th of July and our little cousin's birthday party favors.

It had candy, statues, Halloween socks, party poppers, metal tins in lots of holiday themes, Halloween party favors, birthday Strawberry Short Cake party favors, markers, stickers, chop sticks, activity books, gift bags, calender, cards, stick pin for the 4th of July. An all-around, every-season-of-the-year, party box.

If you look closely, you will see an orange paper with my Vavo's art doodles on it. We have a whole book of these; we collect them because they are very special to us. Not to many kids have bi-monthly art doodles that their great-grand mother made for them.

Let them eat cake

It is really not as bad as it looks.
This is actually a cake to celebrate a 10 year anniversary of my husband's computer group. the group uses LINUX and this is the mascot/symbol of that.
Want to make this cake tutorial here.
Just want to see more photos of the cutting of the cake a few have my silly husband Thayne in them go here.

A time to rest

Saturday I went to my sister-in-law's baby shower.

I spent the previous night and most of that day trying to finish a flower blanket for the baby girl-to-be. I also made a lot of individual cheese cakes for the party. I wish I had been able to finish the blanket I still had about 45 more minutes of work before it would be done; she will get it next Saturday. Oh, well, I would do it all again just to make a gift for someone I care about. She did see it at the party; I think she liked it. I may make her something else, if I have time.

I ended up getting about 2 hours of sleep. My husband had spent most of the weekend driving to and from Nevada to chop wood for his granddaddy,


so he had just as little sleep as I did. It finally hit us Sunday after Church. He crashed on the couch. I think it is just cute, he and our littlest; he didn't even know she was there. She crawled up after he was asleep. She really wasn't asleep yet, she peeked right before I took the photo when she heard the camera go on. If you look, she has the start of a smile. Then peeked again after the photo; then went to sleep. If you can't tell, she is taking a nap in a Halloween costume. It was never one she wore on Halloween (just for dress up) but it is fitting for October.

Humming Bird / Halloween

Received lovely hummingbird photo in the mail today from Tina Wilson.

She took the photo herself; my scan doesn't do it justice. She writes that the bird is a female ruby-throated hummingbird, and that the flowers are bottlebrush . This picture is from a drawing that I entered at MJF that Tina sponsored. I was the winner of this lovely photo. My Vavo loves humming birds, and they always remind me of her.

We have a little humming bird nest in our front room that we accidentally cut down when we pruned our tree last year. If I had known it was in the tree, I would have left that branch. Maybe I will post a photo of it later. It is real neat; they made it out of cobwebs.

My kids also got this card from Grandma and Grandpa Smith.

It is a cute little card.

Sorry, my blog feed seems to be a little messed up at the moment. I apologize; I am not sure why it is showing really old posts.

WIP chair

Here is a WIP for the day.

Detail of the top of the inside back of the chair. I really like carved furniture, and this has just a little bit of it. The chair is from about 1900 and has porcelain casters. I am going to make it match the two wing backs in my front room; a sort of his and hers look.

Cake + Pie Swap

I signed up for a Christmas ornament swap at cake + pie.

I think it should be lots of fun. I can't wait to start on my projects for this, plus I am in a swap at MJF for Christmas, too. Should be a neat holiday with a lot of new hand-made stuff.

The buttons are up at Etsy

I was able to post the buttons on etsy this morning.

So, if you want them, they are there.

Etsy items

The new items for Vintage Threads, Inc., and Sunshine's on Etsy will be listed tomorrow, Friday, October 20, at roughly 2:00 p.m., Utah time. Thank you for looking.

Utah Valley Quilt Guild Show and Tell

This is only a few of them. It was so dark my camera was having issues with the flash.

Plus, the quilts and other things that were made were going by so fast.

This first one is actually taped to the wall, just for displaying for the day. It has a picture of Jesus in it. The quilter said a lot of people have a hard time finding him in it. I could see him right away, can you? It belongs to the president of the guild; she also made it as well as number 2 ( all wool and a past block-of-the-month for the guild). I think the third one is also hers, but I could be wrong on that one.

I can't tell you who the rest belong to, but I can give a little information on some of them.

Included in here is a grandmother's flower garden with a boarder. The woman who made it's mother wanted to entertain her for a while when she was 13 years old and thought this would work. The daughter wasn't too happy with it and thought it boring to work on, so in and out of the trunk it went over the years through marriage and children -- a little here and there being added. The garden was a completed top about 5 years ago. The problem was, the creator of the quilt didn't still like it. After her mother died, it sort of became a tribute to her and she made a border. Then she decided that she finally liked it. That was two years ago. About one year ago she decided to finish it. This is a quilt 72 years in the making; now that is a long-time project. Her mother kept her busy forever. The owner and maker just finished it and is 85 years old. That is tenacity, if I ever saw it.

Also included is a flag quilt which will be taught, if I remember correctly, at a local quilt store.

A light blue on white applique quilt about 12 years in the making is also in this set of quilts. It is all hand appliqued and hand quilted in turquoise thread.

This one belongs to a lady in my quilting bee 'till Christmas when she gives it to her daughter. I go to that bee sporadically on Thursdays; not the one I go to sporadically on Tuesdays. This group that all the bee's belong to meets on the third Wednesday, once a month. If I went to all of these things, life would never happen; just quilts.

The rest are just other quilts. I can't remember all of their stories, but here and there I will tell what I can.

There was a series of five quilts showing studies of water color quilts. I only got two photographed; they were all hearts.

The last one is an old block-of-the-month were you were to make two of each block. As you can tell, there are only 16 blocks, not 24 like there should be; the person gave up.


Join group on Flickr English Paper Piecing

Discovery Park

Discovery park is a real cool place.

I talked, typed actually, so much in the last one I think I am mostly just going to post photos.

Hee - Haw Farm Pleasant Grove

Spent yesterday morning on a class pumpkin field trip to a place called Hee-Haw Farm.

Here are some photos from that trip.

After we had orientation and were told what we could and what we should not do, we ran off and the fun began.

First we went to the pedal go-carts. If you look, she started out going backwards but figured it out after a few minutes and had lots of fun. You might also notice that she is on a cart made for an adult; just a tad way too big. She has to stretch her legs and pedal with her toes. I think half the time she was doing the Fred Flintstone pedal. They each got to do 5 laps before it was the next kid's turn.

Next we were off to the hay bale trampoline. In the middle of a stack of hay bales is a trampoline. So, if a kid jumps off the trampoline, they still land on hay, not the ground far below. This was a big hit with the kids.

For some reason, the older kids wanted to play in the toddler hay bale maze, so they did that. I think it was mostly to show off how far they could jump.

They actually played on this for about 20 minutes I haven't a clue as to why it was so fun, other than it used a lot of energy.

Next, there was this tunnel that Hee - Haw Farm called the corn snake; it is a winding tunnel. I could hear the kids running into each other inside of this thing. They all came out smiling, anyway. It twists a few times before it comes to the other end of the snake. We seem to have a snake theme lately on this blog; not sure why.

They have this tower there that you climb. There are two slides coming from the top; I only took pictures of one. The other was a black tube, and you only saw the kids when they popped out the bottom and almost knocked you down. Real fun to watch unsuspecting bystanders get tackled by kids flying this way and that.

The other looked like a hugh wash board slide and didn't look like fun to me. All the way down the kids are saying ow ow ow but they smile and keep going back up.

The funny part is they all hold their bums when they get off the bottom, and then they want to do it again.

I think I am old or these kids are masochistic. Will someone explain why pain is fun here. I must be old!!!

We went into the big corn maze next, but I didn't take any pictures in there; no hints for any one. Also, after being in it for a while, I just wanted to get out. Keeping track of three kids in a maze is an interesting thing to do. After the kids got tired of answering clues and the like, we decided to head back toward the exit of the maze. Prior to that they just wanted to keep heading farther and farther away from it. It was like the exit was not the goal of the excursion; getting lost was. But that was fine, we were all having fun. It had rained the day before, so trying not to fall on your tail in the mud was the main thing at this point.

After leaving the maze, we decided to go to the corn shed and have a good old food fight. OUCH!!! Hard dried corn should hurt, but they had fun as you can see for yourself.

By this time, the kids decided they were getting a little tired and it was time for a hay ride. So, we waited in line because we missed riding one by 6 people. Oh, well, we will definitely be on the next go round. The man who drove the hayride tractor had to switch tractors before our turn because it was breaking down, and he didn't want to be stuck on the other side of the pumpkin & sunflower patch.

So, we had to wait a little longer, but that was fine with us. It was nice to sit down for a little bit before heading out for more walking through the fields.

The pumpkins at this farm grow in the middle of a sunflower field. So, as you are looking for pumpkins, you have to make sure you don't hit your head on sunflowers, or you will get a sunflower seed shower. After looking for about 15 minutes, we found our prize little pumpkins to take home. We even picked up two more for the sisters, but we didn't take pictures of those.

One more go round on the trampoline, then off to the bus to go to Discovery Park. Next post will be photos from the park.


Update: If you have read the comments, you found out the sad story that is happening to this farm. It has been in one family for over 100 years and now the city is at its gates and wants to build a road through the farm. By next year this place wont exist except in memory and pictures. If you live near it, go now as it won't last long. If you look closely at the last photo, you can see the condos just outside the main gate to the farm.

The owner said he was going to try and buy another farm but it won't be the same as family land for many generations. Progress can be good, and it can be bad; in this case, it is just sad.

How not to read a book

What my three kids do with a five-day weekend.

A week ago we had UEA weekend. Teachers are supposed to go to school; kids don't. So what do three little girls do when they don't have to read books?

Answer : They play card tricks with them.

Plus they drive mom a little crazy because they won't let me fix their hair. They see no reason for it because they don't have to go to school. So, I get three little urchins, too.

a very long day

UPDATE

Well, I wasn't able to post more photos today. It was a crazy day.
6:30 Started out; woke up and started getting ready for the day.

7:00 Then woke up kids. Post to blog, quickly, about buttons. If you have kids, try getting 3 kids fed and 2 dressed for an 8:20 am piano class. Oh, yeah, let's not forget doing the forgotten homework from the previous day. I know I asked if they had any at least a 1/2 dozen times. Not mad; just the same old thing (boy, I remember doing my homework in the morning as a kid, too. I guess they are just like mom and dad).

8:15 Get out the door to find out car won't start; mad dash to de-ice other car, tell husband the one doesn't work, and still try to make it on time to piano practice. Get there, finish homework while oldest does piano.

8:20 Get to piano practice

9:10 Piano practice ends

9:11 get in car to go to school

9:13 get to school

9:15 School starts; get there just in time to run and pay second child's lunch that ran out yesterday before running to oldest child's class. Get told child assignments for field trip that starts in 10 minutes. Of course, last minutes changes and all. Ok -- our little group goes from 5 kids and one adult to 3 kids one adult; I can handle that a little better.

9:30 Load bus. Sit on bus with 60 screaming kids (not kidding! The bus driver got grumpy a few times because he couldn't hear for trains and things).

9:40 Arrive at HEE-Haw farm

9:45 Orientation/ Self Guided Tour of Farm & Maze and everything else ( photos tomorrow)

11:25 Load buses

11:45 Arrive at Discovery Park for lunch and recesses (haven't we already been doing that all day?) Oh, well, it is a cool place for kids and adults who play with their kids, too. ( photos tomorrow)

12: 40 p.m. Load buses

1:00 Arrive at school

1:10 Get home, check mail, say "Hi" to husband and littlest, and leave again

1:15 On way to Utah Valley Quilt Guild Meeting

1:30 Arrive (starts at 1:30; rush to get a chair). Take a few photos; will show tomorrow (round robin day. No sitting today; go from station to station learning things (yeah, right). Two of the teachers knew less than I do; the last one was cool; just probably not a technique I will use. But good to know all the same.

3:05 Back in car, call husband tell him I'll pick up kids from school, call school tell them I will be 3 minutes late.

3:32 Arrive at school, kids see me as on time (I am two minuets late, but they tend to walk slow when getting out of class) good for me.

3:40 Get home, tell kids to have a quick snack and that a pen pal letter is here from NY.

3:55 Ask husband to take oldest daughter to her Church activity and start dinner and doing homework with middle kid

4:20 Set table

4:45 Sit down for dinner

5:00 Ask husband to retreive kid (not with kid when he gets home; concerned mom)

5:30 Kid is delivered home 30 minuets later by late teacher; they (the class) where delivering treats to other kids who didn't go (all is good)

6:00 Get ready for my next Church meeting

7:00 Pick up Crystal for meeting

7:15 Forgot stuff at home for meeting; go and get it

7:20 Meeting

8:00 Leave for next Church meeting

8:08 Get to next meeting

9:00 Leave meeting

9:05 Drop Crystal at home

9:10 Get home, have kids get in pajamas and brush teeth

9:30 Sing songs with kids, have prayer and send to bed

9:45 Do dishes in sink from day

10:00 Crash on sofa for a little bit

11:00 Post this

update within an update

11:30 Go to bed (actually fell asleep on sofa while talking to husband knowing it all starts over in less than 7 hours

Welcome to my day (forgot I had to go to post office; do that tomorrow). Isn't life great! No sarcasm; had fun with lots of kids, got a lot of fun pictures and worn out