Let the countdown begin!

It's December 1st, the beginning of a month we have been waiting for, for a long time! Kade told me last night that this December was going to be the best ever.

He woke up this morning and remembered to say "Bunny Bunny" first thing. I don't know what the story behind that is, but Kade said his teacher told him doing that will give him good luck for the whole month. This is the first month where he actually remembered to say it at the right time, so he is convinced it will work.

Kade's 8th birthday is tomorrow. It's also popcorn day and crazy hair day at school, which makes it even more fun! Jeremy and I will bring birthday treats to school in the afternoon. Kade gets to choose where we'll have dinner, and he's very excited for presents and cake, and a family birthday party on Sunday!

His wish of becoming a big brother will also come true this month. As long as baby isn't too overdue, he'll be born within the next few weeks!

Kade also loves it when we get out the Advent Calendar on December 1st! I made this one last year:




Each little matchbox compartment holds a small chocolate. I'm also doing something new this year to go along with the Advent Calendar. I got a bunch of Christmas books from around the house, the thrift store, and the used book store, and wrapped them all individually, labeling them from 1-24. Kade will get to unwrap the book that corresponds with the number (the date) on the Advent Calendar, and we'll read the book before bed. I love Christmas books!

One last good thing (well definitely not the last, but the last one I'll mention right now!) about December is that Kade got through the entire month of November without getting a fever! That may not seem like such a big deal, but for Kade and his medical issues, it's huge!! It's been months...and months... since he's gone so long without getting a fever. He is so happy and proud of himself for staying healthy. I hope we can keep it going throughout the rest of the year!

Sweater refashion - clothes for boys

I should be cleaning my house, but the baby in my tummy is telling me that I should eat peanut butter and honey sandwiches, drink berry smoothies, and blog, instead. Well, maybe not the blogging, but I am definitely craving the food! And why not blog while I'm eating? I love multitasking!

I have had this big old sweater in my cut-up-and-make-something bin for a long time. I was thinking pillow cover? Stuffed animal? Hat? Not until I saw *this post* at Made did the obvious finally hit me- just make a smaller sweater! So that's just what I did. I followed Dana's great instructions, and in about an hour, Kade had a brand new sweater!

The before:
This sweater was a size XL, and in great condition. Kade thought it was just fun to wear it around like this, making faces and pretending he has really short arms.

The after:
It fits! I used a long sleeved shirt as the pattern, cutting just a bit larger since I wanted a somewhat baggy, comfy fit. Kade loves it, but he thinks it's itchy. I'll just have him wear a t-shirt underneath.

As always, Kade must turn a simple request for one shot into a full photo shoot! There ended up being about 30 poses before I finally told him that I thought I might have enough pictures to choose from. I couldn't help but make this little collage with some of the best.


I have really been enjoying trying to make more of our clothes lately. I haven't made Kade anything else yet besides some freezer paper stenciled shirts, and enlarging some neck holes on some favorite shirts (he has a big head!), but I have some things planned! Yesterday I made 5 maternity shirts for myself out of some t-shirts, skirts, and other fabric that I had in my stash. I'll share those soon!

This Halloween cake will make you..... queasy?

Every year, Kade's school has a cake decorating contest. The finished cakes are awarded as prizes for the Cake Walk activity at the Fall Festival.

This year, Kade is definitely into gross things, so he thought this idea for a cake would be utterly disgusting... in other words, perfect!

Mr. Kade and his cake, Sick Pumpkin.

Gramma is a genius with cakes, so she helped Kade with this project. This is the second year in a row, and it's one of Kade's favorite traditions! She came over with all the goodies and they got to work.

(This is one of his go-to faces to make for pictures...)

Cake Details:
Pumpkin- Chocolate cake covered with handmade fondant. Kade designed the face and helped attach it.
Barf- (Some emails between my mom and me were really funny - "Oh, we should mix in some coconut and marshmallows to give the barf some chunkiness and texture!" - if anybody was spying on my emails, they should be a little grossed out and confused by now!) Vanilla cake tinted green. My mom used a knife to shape the cake into a wavy, bumpy design. The frosting does have coconut, marshmallows, and even little chunks of chocolate in it. Kade then added gummy worms, jelly beans, chocolate eyeballs, candy corn, and some other bits of candy around the top and sides.
Extras- The crow on top of the pumpkin is saying, "That's what happens when you eat too much Trick Or Treat Candy..." and the two spiders are saying, "Eww!" and "Gross!". The tree is a group of branches spray painted black with a little sparkle added. I cut out little black bats and hung them from strings. Little decorative fall leaves were glued here and there, with a few glued on to the cake board as well. We made a tiny ghost to live in the tree, and a spider on a web.


Kade and his Gramma had a great time, and he was so proud of his icky-looking (but delicious!! We had some of the leftover cake and icing, and it was so yummy!) creation! Hopefully whoever won this cake at the Cake Walk wasn't too afraid to eat it... haha ;)

Finally finished, only 3 years late!

Three years ago, Kade asked me for a sock lion for his birthday. That was his favorite animal at the time, and his favorite color was yellow. I bought some cute yellow socks, cut and sewed them up, and set them in my bin full of projects I needed to finish. And there they stayed, getting covered up with more and more unfinished projects.

Kade asked me about his sock lion the other day, and I immediately felt so guilty! I've made close to a hundred sock creatures in the last three years, plus countless other stuffed animals and other things. But I forgot about his little sock lion. I can't believe Kade didn't forget about it too, since it's been so long!

In a way, I'm glad I made this lion now instead of three years ago. I don't think it would have turned out looking anything like a lion back then, when I was just getting the hang of sock monkeys! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It took hours to hand tie each hair of his mane to his head, but it was worth it!

Now, three years later, Kade's favorite animals are turtles. His favorite color is "all the colors but pink!". But I think he will still love his finished sock lion that I will give him as part of his Easter basket. Better late than never, right?

Still to do in my huge pile of halfway done projects-
~King size jean quilt
~Three sock monkeys
~Owl purse
~Two fabric first name puzzles
~A few pairs of baby booties
~A summer shirt for me
~A wallet for Jer

....plus more! Am I the only one who has this problem? It's a personal goal of mine to start finishing all the things I've started, to make way for new things. I *love* getting something done and checking it off my mental list. I'm not going to procrastinate any more. This yellow lion is the first of many, and I'm so excited to move on to the next!!

***Just thought I would add the link to the tutorial I used, years ago, to learn how to make sock monkeys! They are easy, and with just the basic sock monkey form you can also make lions like mine, cats, dogs, bunnies, monsters, and lots of other things! There are also lots of other sock creature tutorials out there if you just search for them. I highly recommend it, they are so fun to make!***

Raja the Literacy Cat

Kade had a very captive little audience for his daily reading yesterday! Raja the cat just climbed up and made himself comfy.


Reading to the cat was the most fun he's had reading in a long time! Kade will read if I tell him to, but never choses to read for fun. Long books intimidate him, although he is a pretty good reader (at or slightly above his age level for this time of the school year). This book took him about 25 minutes to read, and he never once asked me if he could take a break.


I've heard of therapy dogs that are taken into school for children to read to. It helps to improve their literacy skills.


After seeing this, I believe animals really can be great reading companions! Kade was definitely more excited about reading to a cat than he ever has been about reading to me! I'm putting that on my mental list of good reasons to get our own cat when we move next year!

(note- Raja is not an actual trained therapy animal. He's just our friend's sweet pet. Well, sweet unless he's trying to steal cheese, in which case he's downright obnoxious! But we love him!)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We love this holiday at our house! This year, my son has been very excited about Leprechauns. They've been talking a lot about them at school. Their class leprechaun, Lucky, has been leaving little shamrock footprints around the classroom, and creating lots of messes while the students aren't there. At Grandma's house, some milk was left out in a little pitcher, in case the leprechauns were thirsty. In the morning, the milk, poured into Kade's glass, magically turned green! He was convinced that if he drank it, he would be magical just like one of them. Last night, they caused more havoc in Kade's room, knocking down his giant robot.

Kade had a class assignment to create a Leprechaun trap. Here is what we came up with! The three of us made it together, but Kade did a large part of the work, and made all the decisions.

We painted a piece of cardboard green, painted a gold road, and stapled shamrock wire garland around the pathway. The straw ladder leads up to the top of a painted and decorated laundry soap container.

Doesn't it look enticing up there? We wanted to lure the leprechaun to the top of the ladder to see the pot of gold. We put lots of signs around, because as we all know, they never follow the rules!

The cauldron holds a ton of gold
(little rocks that were rolled around in gold paint).

It sits at the back, so the leprechaun has to step onto the disguised trap to get to it, and he'll fall into our little playouse.

Inside, Kade made a very comfy pillow to land on so the leprechaun won't get hurt. The floor is covered in plush blue fleece carpet. The cardboard table holds a little bowl (the dome top of one of those quarter machine ninjas) filled with Lucky Charms cereal. A "TV" on the wall is on for his enjoyment. There is even a cute window, complete with curtains. But how come he can't see outside?

Peek-a-boo! There's Kade, lifting the secret flap on the outside to peer into this tiny playhouse and see if he has caught anything!

We hope we have made this little trap so inviting, the leprechaun won't even want to leave! I am excited to pick up Kade from school in half an hour and see what happened. But if we don't catch any this year, we can always try again next year!

Boys can craft, too!!!

I had a conversation with another mom the other day, about teaching our kids how to sew, embroider, and just be crafty in general. This other mom was a bit afraid that teaching these things to her young son would somehow make him less boyish. It's mostly the sewing, I think, that had her scared. She wondered what other kids would think of him if they knew he sewed, and if they would make fun of him for it. I started talking to her about a project Kade just started on, and she thought it was actually really cute!

Personally, I think that if a guy can sew, that's awesome!! Kudos to him. It definitely doesn't make a guy (or a little boy) more girly. I mean, it's the same deal with girls that can build things like bunk beds and kitchen tables. Why should one type of art be looked upon as something only guys do, or only girls do?

I'd like to let Kade express himself however he wants to, whether it be shooting hoops, scoring goals, painting, singing, anything... whatever makes him happy! Right now, he REALLY wants to take swimming lessons. He's so proud that he knows how to hold his breath under water, and wants to learn more. He's also interested in martial arts, and we might put him in some classes at some point. We read an article in Family Fun magazine about building tiny tree houses, and he is so looking forward to doing that as a project this summer.

Another thing he is excited about doing right now is sewing! And boy, there is probably not a more boyish project than this. He decided himself that he wanted to make a Batman plush. He drew the design all by himself.


I enlarged the pattern a bit. Then he cut it out and pinned it to the felt.


I was super impressed by the pinning- what perfect placement! One in each limb, and look at the eyeballs...


After cutting out the felt (I helped around the corners), we'll do another one, pin them together, and he'll hand sew around the outside with embroidery thread. Then he can stuff it and sew the opening closed. Final touches will be adding the belt, eyes, and mouth. We haven't gotten that far yet, but I'll post pictures when it's done.



I think it's adorable, and I'm happy he's learning something that I love to do. It's great for exercising his fine motor skills, and his creativity. It's going to be such a sweet keepsake to look back on some day in the future. Even if he grows out of his sewing interests, it sure is fun for now!



*Oh, as soon as I upload all the new pictures from my camera, I have to show you the amazing Star Wars cake my mom made for Jer this year!! Check back for photos... =c)

Kade and the Sock Monkey Factory

I have been super busy the past couple weeks in my one-person sock monkey factory. It is a happy, magical place, mostly, except when something (i.e. tripping over remote controlled R2D2) unexpected happens and arms, tails, ears, and bodies go flying everywhere. Luckily no important body parts (are there any unimportant ones??) were lost, and all the sock monkeys were able to be put together without any missing pieces. Here are a few of them:





Those were all custom orders! I am almost done with two more, that I haven't taken photos of yet- one for my nephew's baby shower this weekend, and one to (finally!) put in the shop. Besides that, there are quite a few more in the beginning stages, waiting to be stuffed and sewn!

Sock monkeys take a lot of work to make, at least the way I make them (I am very focused on little details, and somewhat of a perfectionist...). It's been a little non-stop over here for a while, and I began to realize that when Kade started giving me advice the other day...

Kade- "Lets buy that wooden mailbox toy with all the letters, the same one that my teacher has!"

Me- "Sorry honey, we don't have any extra money in the budget right now for toys."

Kade- "Hmm. Well, maybe you just need to make more sock monkeys then, huh!"

then yesterday:

Me- "Holy cow, that fifteen minute doctor appointment cost five hundred and seventy five dollars!!!"

Kade- "Just make some more sock monkeys, mom! Sheesh! Learn your lesson yet?"

Apparently, sock monkeys are the answer to all my problems. Who knew?! We have been talking to Kade a lot recently about how mommy and daddy have to work so that we can have a place to live, have a car, have food to eat, etc. and it suddenly clicked with Kade that you need money to buy things. Now he isn't quite as upset that daddy can't get home until close to bedtime, because he understands that daddy is working so hard every day for our benefit.

Kade is trying to think of ways to earn money himself, so he can buy that toy he wants. Yesterday when I was using hand sanitizer + magic eraser (hey, it works!) to get rid of dry erase marker stains on the whiteboard, Kade said, "hey... I bet Grandma doesn't know that trick. I bet I can sell it to her!" and then he wiggled his eyebrows and tapped his fingertips together with a very sly giggle. He wants to sell cleaning tips! So funny.

He also made me a video. It's one of his favorite things to do lately. You can tell by watching this that our house really has been a sock monkey factory, at least in his eyes. (Oh, and I don't know why the video looks so strange... I think he was using the Eiffel Tower background effect, which doesn't work too well unless you are in front of a plain wall or sheet or something.)

Anyways, here is a prime example of Kade sweetness:





Now, it's back to the factory for me! I can't wait! :)

God Bless America

I had no idea Kade could do this until a couple days ago. He showed me after school, and I just had to tape it! I'm a proud mama! :)

Evergreen State Fair

Last week we went to the annual Evergreen State Fair. When we left the house in the morning, it was absolutely pouring down rain! So we donned rain coats and rain boots and brought the umbrellas. As soon as we got to the fair, the rain subsided, and didn't appear again until we got in the car to drive home that evening!

Here are a few (very few!) highlights:

Kade and one of his cousins got to go on rides together this year. They had a blast!!!


Best buddies :)


This was probably Kade's favorite part of the fair this year. We spent a lot of time looking at all these wood carved creatures. We got to watch a man create Kade's favorite animal, a turtle! Kade wanted his picture taken by every single carving that he thought was cool. I have about 25 pictures like these:


The tallest guy at the fair:


When Kade spotted this HippoCampus on the carousel, he was entranced. As soon as the gates opened, he made a beeline straight for it. He grinned so happily during the whole ride:


I was showing these photos to a friend of mine, and she liked the HippoCampus so much that she hand carved a stamp of it!! Here is is:


Isn't that amazing?! It looks JUST like the picture!

Anyways, I always feel like the Fair is a sign of the end of summer. Leaves have started to turn, it's getting dark earlier, Kade's starting Kindergarten on Monday. Summer went by too quickly! But, Fall is my favorite season, and I can't wait to see what it brings this year :)

Reusable snack bags + free tutorial for a sandwich wrap

Last week, Kade went to day camp. I packed him a lunch every day, and realized by the end of the week that I had used at least 8 plastic ziplock bags! Next year he'll be taking lunch to school, and if I use that many baggies every week for a whole year.... wow. Lots of money wasted, lots of plastic bags in the garbage. So, I decided to make him some reusable snack bags.

(Chocolate milk is there so you can see how big they are)

I have made two sets so far (SpongeBob and outer space) and will probably make one more. They are the same basic size as the snack size and sandwich size ziplocks. They have tabs to make them easy to open, and velcro all the way across the opening.


The inside is made out of PUL (polyurethane laminated fabric)- it is soft and flexible, waterproof, washable, and safe*. I got mine at Kids in the Garden- she is very reasonably priced, and you can buy by the inch! You could also use oilcloth, or just regular cotton fabric.

After I made the snack bags, I decided to try and make a sandwich wrap. The boy I nanny uses them every day at school, and loves them! They hold everything in nicely, make a nice clean place mat for his food to sit on, and also work for crackers, apple slices, cookies, etc. So, I sat down and drew out a little tutorial for myself (I have to figure stuff out before I start sewing, or who knows what I'll end up with!), and here's what I came up with!

(Once again... chocolate milk was easier to show the size than making an actual sandwich!)

Cute, huh?! The great thing is that all three items (2 snack bags and 1 wrap) only cost me about $5, total! I love saving money! And I feel good about reducing (even if only by a little bit) the amount of trash we throw out.

Here is my little tutorial for the sandwich wrap. Now you can make some for your kids too! :) I don't know how to attach a PDF to my blog, so just click on the picture to make it bigger, and save it to your computer if you want to.


So there ya go! If enough people want me to, I'll also do a little tutorial sheet on the 2 sizes of snack baggies. I hope the tutorial makes sense, if you have any questions or if anything is confusing, just let me know :) Enjoy!

* There is a lot of conflicting information on the web about whether PUL is food safe or not. From all my research, I have decided that I am comfortable using it for my family. PUL is plastic, so if you don't like saran wrap, ziplock baggies, etc. coming in contact with your food, PUL might not be a good choice for you. PUL is also not to be heated up, of course. As with anything else, do your own research and come to your own conclusions about whether or not to use PUL.