sewing again...

I just had to snap this post-project picture of my black skirt covered in lint, thread & all manner of sewing bits. I am beginning to really enjoy sewing. Especially when I don't break a needle and I remember how to trouble-shoot thread-bunching issues. I like selecting the fabrics, making a plan, working through the steps, making a mess... all to create something special.Last week I finished a gift for my friend Jenn. She is expecting baby #3, and she happens to be girl #1. It was such a pleasure to make these little things for her. Today she let me know that she got her little package so I get to show you what I made for her!

The first thing I made is a "carseat blanket." I've made a few of these in the past, they are quick and so far everyone I've made one for has loved it. It basically consists of a really-soft-textured-fabric on one side and a cute flannel on the other. With an initial appliqued on the front... And of course, its just the right size to tuck in around baby in her carseat (hence the clever name!) This project would be ridiculously faster if I would break down and buy some more wonder-under... (I even saw a tutorial that used spray adhesive for applique.... hmm...) So I used a million pins instead of ironing on some sticky-paper.
I only took one 'after picture' with both projects. The pink thing is a "lovey-dovey monster." I got the idea from a combination of a few etsy stores. Walker helped stuff her. She has ribbon and ric-rac hair, a button eye, and some pockets, and some seriously skinny legs! I think baby girl will enjoy this thing...eventually. (p.s. Rene, I've got my poster propped on the edge of my sewing table right now, its rather motivational)
Oh, and a big heart on the back, with a bit of ACU to represent the Army. Hooah!
Someone asked me again recently if I ever considered selling some of my stuff. I enjoy the process so much right now, I would hate to lose the enjoyment of it. Not to mention the majority of the things I make are not my own original idea (and some of the tutorials I've found say "don't make money off of this" or maybe they say "for personal use only." either way, I think the point is the same.)

Also, when I am sewing a gift, I spend some time in prayer for the recipient. And God usually has a lesson in there for me too. He is so creative. He loves to select just the right pieces to work out His plans. And the end result is always beautiful...although sometimes, along the way, there might be a mess. And He is perfectly OK with that.

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)

someone's counting down something...

I found this little note on Wilson's desk calendar yesterday... he came home Friday and told us that he has no more homework and no more tests until the end of the school year. I think he is pretty excited for the lazy days of summer!

p.s. we may (or may not) practice some spelling words this summer.

also when I mentioned the possibility of homeschooling the other day (I like to keep the option on the table...) he came up with one pro and one con...

pro - we would have healthier lunches. (ummm I pack his lunch 95% of the time).
con - it would take longer to make friends.

fun in the big city...

Brad decided we needed a little family fun this weekend... and thought we should get out of town. We took big girl back to the kennel (its good for her to branch out and try new things), and headed north. We didn't stay right downtown Atlanta because the army doesn't pay that well. we stayed a little south and headed downtown in the morning, I guess we arrived around 10ish or so...

We had read online that there was a kite festival at the Olympic centennial park. Wilson has wanted to see "where the Olympics were" since the winter Olympics so we thought this would be a good opportunity.

Here is a huge fountain in the park just across the street from cnn's headquarters. (by the time we left a few hours later, there were TONS of kids in bathing suits playing in that fountain).the atlanta braves were trying to drum-up some fans, so the boys took a swing...
walker kept swinging & missing, but finally connected...
sorry, Rene, I know this might break your heart... but the boys posed rather cheerfully in front of this thing... Walker even slapped his "braves" sticker onto the front of his t-shirt... (which later led a couple to believe that he was a big fan, and they started waving their arm up & down karate-chop-style as if we knew what that meant).
they had a little station where the kids could decorate a paper kite and then add string & a tail...
...and give them a whirl. the boys loved it.
we then walked across the street to the Pemberton park, which is between The World of Coca-Cola and the Georgia Aquarium. The boys & daddy posed with Dr. Pemberton (coke guy). We strolled around a bit more and then headed off to lunch...
We went to The Varsity diner, world's largest drive-in. But we walked in and ate. Brad had chili dogs...
I had to try the fried pies. Peach. (Wilson actually hated it, but he went along with the pose for me).
The boys got paper hats to remember the visit.
Walker might get into advertising some day...

Umm, the folks in Atlanta are a bit more outspoken than the people around these parts. Two women told me that they loved my husband's t-shirt, and one lady stopped Brad at the diner so she could show it to her husband. Hehehe.

"where was Brad all weekend?"

he was at work.

This weekend was the Best Ranger Competition. We didn't know what to expect, but Brad heard about it as soon as he started working here... He sent me a text Saturday morning, "i am working rfr, you should come" I had no idea what "RFR" was but thought we should give it a look-see...

the first few pics here are from where Brad was working...as a medic...

Blackhawk down!!! (is that a blackhawk?)here is a random picture of Brad at work... the only picture taken of him at BRC...
they launched some-sort-of-artillery-fake-thing-with-smoke... to simulate enemy fire, etc. (I don't know any of the correct lingo). It was LOUD!

sidenote: Brad told me "when you hear a whistle, plug your ears. make the boys put their fingers inside their ears." When Brad said "whistle" I thought he meant, like-a-ref's-whistle. No, he meant, like a whistling sound as artillery flies through the air.... thankfully enough spectators around us said, "its coming, here it comes..." I honestly thought someone was going to blow on a whistle to alert us! Wow.
thankfully, they were able to get this wounded guy out of the chopper... that was their goal...
{not everyone liked the loud noises...}
the rest are pictures are of some of the other events at the field on Saturday... I don't know what any of it is called...
sliding down a rope
climbing a rock wall...
sliding down a thicker rope from a lower height
climbing up a little-tiny-rope-ladder
getting ready to get the bad guys...
beating up the bad guys...
this is what they had to do in the previous two pictures...

Seriously. I had NO idea what to expect. This was pretty awesome though. I think as long as we are here, we'll check it out each year. Maybe we'll bring some earplugs next time...

Brad worked a lot of LONG hours. He didn't even get to see much of the actual competition, just the parts that he was working.

thirty-four...

...is looking good so far! I seriously had a fantastic birthday! FAN-TAS-TIC, I tell you! It started with a surprise visit from Brad -- he was supposed to be working all-day-long. He left at 3:30am, but at 6:00am he returned home for a few hours! What a treat! I quickly convinced Mom to snap a family picture, because it was my birthday and I knew I could use that as leverage to get everyone on board (I am the only one that actually likes family pictures... why is that?) I think we got a pretty good one!
Then Yaya, the boys, and I headed out to Callaway Gardens. We didn't know exactly what to expect...but I am certain that it exceeded all of our expectations!
It was beautiful...tons of flowers all over the place!
And there was a butterfly center (it was a bit steamy in there). This one liked Wilson's hair...
This is at the vegetable garden... this picture doesn't quite capture it all - it was HUGE!
This was the backyard habitat... Walker is quietly approaching a squirrel...
I couldn't resist taking the boys' picture in front of the "Birds of Prey" wingspan sign...
... cuties. The "Birds of Prey" show was quite good too... mom's shoulder got brushed by a hawk, and I had to duck as an owl flew inches over my head! yikes!
Here are the boys looking into a stream...
oh, and this butterfly loved the bracelet mom made me...it was trying to get nectar from one of the beads!
oh... and this is just a bonus shot of my new shoes. I didn't wear them on my birthday... I had to wear red, white & blue for PWOC on Thursday, so I found these cuties at TJMaxx. They make me smile... a lot. (Brad mentioned something about a tornado when he saw them =)... )
After the gardens, we came home and had dinner. Yaya and the boys made me Triple Chocolate Fudge cupcakes, with Triple Chocolate Fudge Chip frosting. Then we did some late-night star-gazing before bed. It was a great day!

adventures with Yaya...

...can you even believe that Yaya has been here four days already and this is the first time I have uploaded pictures? What a shame! Truth be told, I forgot the camera the morning she flew in... that was the least of my mistakes that morning... Thankfully she made it safely. After some gps issues we arrived at IHOP about 45 minutes later than anticipated, ate breakfast, and then spent a good amount of time at IKEA. It was the boys' first visit and I think we found a good balance of them enjoying it without staying so long that we wrecked our chances of ever returning! I found 157 things I want, but not too much that I needed.

Sunday we rested.

Yesterday, we got some serious rainfall. Wow. I patted myself on the back for making Wilson wear his raincoat to school.

And today we picked Wilson up from school (early release on Tuesday afternoon, remember) and headed to the Coca-Cola Space Science Center in town. Wilson had been eager to visit there... You can sorta tell he was thrilled from this picture...Its actually a pretty small place... they have four of these fighter-jet-simulators... Walker couldn't quite reach to make things work... so he ended up in an awkward position...
...and needed a wing-man (or wing-mom if you want to be technical).
Wilson was super focused on the task at hand...
He recently said he wants to be a pilot, so I guess it shouldn't be that surprising that he was so serious about it...
Yaya and Walker paused for a minute in front of the green screen to be weathermen... outer-space-weathermen.
This was some sort of wave-making-thing. There was a fascinating video of a bridge being shaken right next to this... I didn't get all the details...
Yaya explaining something about the shuttle...
Walker in the shuttle-landing-simulator...
And Wilson in the shuttle-landing-simulator. There was a lot of crashing & burning today for the shuttle.

It was a fun little trip, like I said, the place isn't that big... oh, and did I mention that there were three buses of field-trippers there? That's why I was a little distracted about parts of it. However, we were the only ones in the planetarium theater at 3pm, so we got to pick which movie we watched. It worked out perfectly because the guy told us about an "age-appropriate" movie... the boys were even singing and clapping at parts of it (so were Yaya & I).

spatchcock much?

Now that I know how, I might do it more often... Mom signed Rene and I up for "Everyday Food." And nearly every month I find a couple fun things to try. When this month's issue came and I read "HOW-TO spatchcock a chicken." Well, let's just say I had to give it a try... and if I'm going to try something with a name like, "spatchcock" well, you better believe I am going to document it...The magazine had great pictures for how to actually do this thing called spatchcocking... which is basically cutting out the backbone & flattening the bird so it cooks more quickly (and maybe not more quickly, because it is at a much higher heat than normal - 500 degrees!) Julie, you would totally LOVE this, using your kitchen shears to cut up a whole bird!

There she is almost ready to go, with her thin lemon slices tucked inside the skin...
Add some quartered potatoes, an onion, a bit of olive oil & some s& p and she is good to go!
30 minutes later! Viola! (although she had to revisit the oven for a few more minutes cause she wasn't quite all the way done at this point... we had to throw our meat thermometer away because you couldn't read the print on it anymore... Can anyone recommend a good meat thermometer???)
I suggest you try to spatchcock soon. It seemed easier to rip all the extra meat off the bones, but that might just be because I was grinning about how well it turned out. (We had fish tacos the other day... no big grin on my face after that meal!)