As if I needed a longer "To-Do" list

For your viewing pleasure. Please note that I take no responsiblity for your urge to do these projects as a result of looking at this post.

I've been thinking I should make some skirts for Allison. She loves skirts and they'd be so cheap to make... cheaper than buying the things. Toddler-sized skirt patterns don't exist (becuase they're so stinkin' easy, but I'm a Type A, so I looked anyway), so I hit the internet. Here are a few of my favorites that my searches yeilded me today.

Lazy Days Skirt. No picture here, but click the link for the instructions. Its simple and easy. I'll probably make this one several times over.

The Dresden Plate skirt. Cute, huh? See the scallop edge? Not being a quilter I had no idea what a "dresden plate" was when I stumbled upon the post. But it makes a DARLING skirt. But, not-so-simple. Good thing I was taught well how to sew well (thanks, Mom!). Find the tutorial over at Crafter Hours.

The Tumbler skirt. Adorable. I love the shape. I acutally think I need to make one fore me before Allison. Looks like the PERFECT summer skirt, if you ask me. Tutorial over at Crap I've Made (seriously, thats the name of this blog).

Easy Whirly Skirt. Cute, simple, looks FAST to stitch up. Another make-it-a-million-times winner by the looks of things. Find the tutorial over at This Mama Makes Stuff.

By the way, if you're in the market for patterns, Simplicity is $1.99 at JoAnn's this weekend. We picked up the pattern for Allison's costume today. I'm not telling what she wanted to be... I was mildly (but not completely) surprised at her choice, and I'm excited that she chose something that I could use as a jumping-off point for costumes for the rest of the family. We might even convince Brian to play along and dress up this year. :)

On a related note, I now aspire to NEVER take my children to Jo-Ann's again. Ever. And if you happened to be in the Fayetteville Jo-Anns before 11 am today, I apologize for the crying, screaming banshees' behavior... er... I mean, my children's behavior.

As heard in church today..

Allison was looking through the pictures in my Primary binder, pointing out Jesus in every picture that includes Him. She came across this picture:

Stilling the Storm, Artist Ted Henninger

She points to Jesus and says "There's Jesus! Jesus is a pirate!"

Doctrinally sound? Nope. But thats okay... we're pretty sure Heavenly Father has a sense of humor too. :)

Melting

It's 10 p.m. It is currently 86 degrees in my house. Its only 83 outside... but according to weather.com is feels like 88, if thats worth anything. It been in the mid 90s all week. With 50% plus humidity.

We, obviously, have no AC. The coolest its been in my house since Sunday morning is 77 degrees. Its only going to get down to 72 tonight. It'll be 80 again by 10 a.m.

The kids are having trouble sleeping in this heat. I haven't turned our 2 measly ceiling fans off in over 72 hours. We're also running four additional fans pretty much all day and all night, just to make the kids rooms sort-of bearable... and our window AC unit too. I'm dreading our electric bill. I can't remember the last time I didn't feel like I'd just worked out for an hour (sweat wise). Make-up is pointless, and only lasts a matter of minutes. And this kind of oppressive heat makes me cranky. I am miserable.

Saturday can't come soon enough. Its supposed to rain all morning, and not even hit 80. Sounds glorious. In the mean time, I'll be pricing out central air...

Projects and Accomplishments

I have a very long list of projects that I want to do. I think it might be longer than Brian's "Honey-Do" list... hard to tell, beceause some of the things on his honey-do list are on my list too, as I intend to be a big part of them.

I've had a very long list for a fairly long time. And things just seem to never get done. I often feel like I accomplish absolutely nothing. So, here I am reminding myself that I do accomplish things occasionally... and sometimes its even something more signifigant than the laundry.

This shouldn't even count, it was so easy. I've talked about having a bow-holder since Allison was born. A few weeks ago, I finally did it. Almost too easy to be called an accomplishment, but everything counts when you're a mom, right? Literally, I bought the A, stapled the big pink ribbons to the back and hung it on her wall.

We built our garden boxes and planted in June and its really taking off. I love that the garden required almost zero effort from me. I water it when its needs it (every day this week with our current 15 degree above average heat wave!), and pull a few small weeds here and there, and its flourishing! We planted cherry tomatoes (we've got some tiny green ones out there now!) cucumbers (a whole bunch of flowers on the plants!), red and gree bell peppers (I saw our first few tiny peppers on one of the plants yesterday) green beans, peas (which are getting taller than I expected!), pumpkins (with a few nice big flowers), zuchini and squash (both are starting to think about putting blossoms out). I'm so excited that I'm not failing at the garden. I'm thinking we'll expand next year and put in a third bed. I'm not sure what else we'll plant... I guess we'll start figuring that our when we see what kind of harvest we get this year.

This little fabric playhouse has been on my list forever. You can find the tutorial here, at UK Lass in US. Apparently her idea also made it into One Yard Wonders. Pretty neat! I enjoyed making this little barn for Allison's barn animals (and I love, even more, that the barn animals now have somewhere to live!). Its not totally done yet... Allison wants me to put in a puddle for the pigs (who are currently MIA) and I should put a door on the outside. But I wanted Allison to be able to play with it, and I haven't been able to get it away from her since! I'm also already have fabric for a Littlest Pet Shop home of sorts. I found some Littlest Pet Shop pets on clearance, and I happened to also have buy-one-get-one coupons... so I picked up half a dozen for $0.75 each. They've made great little prizes for Allison, and now they need a home too.

A little home organization. This is going to go on my kitchen wall to help me keep track of what we have going on. I decided we needed one when I forget to pick Brian up from work in time for his chiropractic appointment a few weeks ago. I just created the calendar, had it blown up (22x28) at a copy center and put it in a frame... instant wipe-off family calendar. Now maybe I'll actually get my monthly dinner menu done to put on it one of these days.

I've also done a little paper crafting recently, but don't have any pictures of those taken. But I'm hoping to do a bunch more soon... our trip to Europe is calling my name, so I finally ordered prints and hope to work on that soon.

Zoo

I took the kids to the zoo yesterday. Not becuase it sounded particularly fun, but because if we didn't do SOMETHING out of the ordinary, the chances of everyone surviving the day looked far too slim. So we went to the zoo... it was the first thing I could think of really

I knew Allison would love seeing all the animals, and I knew Carter would love the stroller ride part of it (kid loves stroller rides). But I didn't anticipate how much Carter would love seeing all the animals too! He was so excited at every new exhibit. And he tried to climb into most of them too.

Both kids got to pet an elephant too. One of the zoo keepers had an elephant right by the exhibit fence and was walking her up and down the fence so that kids could touch her. Allison thought it was great... Carter thought it was interesting, and then thought that the elephant was too big and too close to him.

All in all, we had a fun day. And better yet, everyone survived the day.

Relapse

My ODAD has struck again. Its was in remission for a while, but I've replased. I blame Rite Aid... and Huggies. They've been conspiring, I think. Clearancing out mega packs while $3 coupons are available? Definantly a conspiracy.

I don't want to admit how many diapers we have in the house. Lets just say, its alot. Lets just say, that by the time I run out of coupons we might not have to buy diapers again for the rest of the year. And I'm not exaggerating.

If you need diapers, find a Rite Aid near you. Price check the mega packs. All of them... Pampers, Huggies, Luvs... are apparently on clearance, but they may not marked. They should ring up at $8.99. Grab 3... Use this $5/$25 purchse coupon, and any brand coupons you may have. If you happen to like Huggies, use three $3 coupons from here (sort by "Household") and here (print each one twice from every computer you can get your hands on!) If you get 3 Huggies and use 3 of the coupons plus the $5 coupon, you'll pay $12.97 plus tax for 3 MEGA packs... thats only $4.32 per pack! I normally get excited seeing that price on Jumbo packs!

Okay... coupon TMI over.

Funny, but only because it's true.

I think someone's been spying on me...