I took a break from the costume making Sunday and Monday, and now I am in the final push.  I’m currently in the process of covering the whole back of the costume with spots (by the way, have I mentioned how many hours I have spent cutting those out?).

How am I keeping Caleb occupied?  Two words.  Moon sand.  He loves that stuff.  We bundled up in several layers today and spent a long time on the screened porch.  Him playing in the sand and me cutting out little black dots, and smiling to myself as I watched someone mow at the house next door (more on that later).  I just realized, since we are having a cold snap with a high of 50 today and 25mph winds, that Caleb doesn’t have a thick winter jacket yet.  He has several light weight ones.  So I put him in a long sleeved shirt, a sweatshirt, a jacket and a hat pulled over his ears with his hood up.  He might not have been able to bend at the elbows, but everything was warm except his hands and nose!

Didn’t I take this picture last year?  I’ve come to the conclusion this hat is never going to fit.

Pictures from the playground last week.  Awful/harsh lighting, but who cares.

Taking a little break

Playin’ in the leaves

Cramming leaves in that poor rocket

What?  Why would you think this is a baby toy?  I’m not to big for it.

Ran into a leaf drift

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It is actually going better than expected.  A white hooded one piece suit would have made my life invariably simpler.  But, it is made none the less.  And it has a strip of velcro on the butt for the tail, as I don’t imagine it would be too comfortable to sit on (every time I do it, my -preposition at the end of a sentence- alarm goes off, I just don’t care enough to reword it.  I’m such a dork).  I just need to make some ears and paws, then finish cutting out and glue all the spots.  You know, nothing much.  You don’t even want to know how many hours I’ve spent on it already.  But it will all be worth it.  I think.  As long as the seams don’t fall apart before next Friday.

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I have no business doing this.  Like, slowly put down the handheld sewing machine (they have those?  I’m pretty sure.) and step away from the fabric.  I’m supposed to be purchasing white attire and gluing on some black dots.  But I have waited so long, I’m afraid ordering online, the items won’t get here.  And it would be very painful for me to spend $40 on a pair of white pants and a hooded sweat shirt.  (But not on a highly coveted Tom Arma costume.  Damnit man!  Where’s the dalmatian one?!)  The kid wants to be a dalmatian, so dalmatian it is.  I already turned a giraffe into a bat, so how hard can this be?  Right?

P.S. I also want to make the treat bag out of felt.  I little brown “paper” bag.  A doggy bag.  Hahaha, get it?  I’m so clever.  And stupid.  It will be like one of those little videos with the word counter.  Ding.  One.  Ding, ding.  Two, three.  #!%*.  How many times will she cuss while making this?  Oh I kid.  Sort of.

White flannel, black felt, new scissors, safety pins (to pin it together and then try it on him without tears), black felt, velcro, a “pattern” – a slightly too small Harley Davidson one piece, and a handheld sewing machine, because I don’t know how to work the ’68 big lug my mom gave me.  Gotta find something long sleeved to make the sleeves though.

The inspiration

Wish me luck?  I’m gonna need it.

Oh and if by some chance, I actually pull this off…I’ll be on cloud nine.

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I was talking with Charley a few days ago.  Yes talking.  Caleb uses this high pitched voice and makes Charley talk to me and give me kisses goodnight, etc.  Anyway, Caleb wondered out loud at naptime a few days ago about Charley dressing up for Halloween.  A conversation ensued about what Charley should be for Halloween.  He first suggested a tiger, and I wasn’t sure I could pull that off, so I started rattling off possibilities, asking Charley what he thought of them.  I mentioned a dog, to which Charley replied, “Nah, too woofy.  Dats what Caleb’s gonna be.”  So after a few more suggestions, we settled on a bat.  Charley was in agreement so we set off to Walmart today for a few buttons and some black felt.  $3 well spent.  I worked all through naptime on what Scott has cleverly named “Charley the Bat-a-raffe.”  It just so happened that I was able to keep the sewing, not my forte, to a minimum by just wrapping the piece of felt around Charley and adding a couple buttons.  I didn’t even have to cut the first piece of felt.  I added his hood and wings and ta-da…I give you…Bat-a-raffe.

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It makes me feel like I can do anything!

I’m talking about baking soda people.  Jeez, where is your mind today?

Seriously, the uses for regular old baking soda never cease to amaze me!  I’ve been on a cleaning spree here lately, and the badly neglected microwave fell victim today.  I poured a small clump of baking soda in a bowl with a little bit of warm water.  Microwave for a minute, let some steam build up in there, and stuff was just wiping right off.  Amazing.

Until I looked at the neighboring toaster oven.  Can I just say, “Ew.”  It is so bad that food doesn’t even taste right coming out of there.  You open the door and the smell of ‘burnt’ just hits you in the face.  Burned what, I don’t know.  Just burned.  I scrubbed and wiped everything down, trying to avoid using chemicals.  I put everything back, but it just still wreaked.  I couldn’t see anything else in there, it looked clean.  It just didn’t smell clean. Now if you’re like me, you have that cute little box of baking soda in the back of the fridge.  It has been there for over a year (hey, did you know you’re supposed to change it every month?).  “They” say it helps absorb odors, but you have no idea whether it actually works.  Maybe you just remember your mom doing it.

So I was a bit skeptical that my microwave application might have the same wondrous effect in the toaster oven.  After all, the microwave didn’t smell this bad.  But I decided to give it a try.  I covered the tray in foil (I always do this anyway, so I don’t have to scrub all the baked on stuff) and dumped some baking soda and water on there and popped it in to bake.  I turned the oven up to 450 for 5-10 minutes.  When I returned, it had created a big ball of gas that erupted into flames and the paint was melting off the walls!

Nah, just kiddin :)   I balled up a hot cloth (so as not to crack the glass!) and wiped off the door, which now looks significantly better.  But I was amazed to find, the smell was gone.  No hint, no remnants, nothing.  Once I replaced the foil cover, I was all done!

So there’s my cleaning tip for the week.  I see you over there shaking your head.  Yep, you’re toaster is gross too isn’t it?  What’s that?  Don’t even look inside the microwave?  Your secret’s safe with me.

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Okay, I totally am, but anyway. I’ve now been cutting Caleb’s hair for a year myself. It takes me a while, and makes me nervous, but I feel like I’ve gotten reasonably decent at it. Haircuts were such an embarrassing nightmare, so one day last year I said, “Do you want to go somewhere for a haircut, or do you want Mommy to do it?” I ask him every time, and every time he picks me. He sits still better (although still not great) if I ask him first. I give him a the choice already knowing his answer. Saved a few bucks too, which certainly doesn’t hurt my feelings!

Plus no hairdresser seems to comprehend when you say “leave it a little shaggy”  Apparently it must go against some oath they take.

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I figured with our cold weather projects this week, homemade ice cream would tie in nicely. I think both Caleb and I were a bit skeptical of this one. We followed this super simple recipe. Boy, talk about surprised when he saw that the three ingredients resulted in something resembling ice cream. I tried it and it is delicious! But he was still raising his eyebrows. Finally he took a cautious bite and pleasantly surprised. I put it in a bowl for him with a little chocolate sauce on top. That was one happy kid.

I wrapped a dish towel around the bag to shake it, I imagine it would hurt your hands without one.

Can you tell we haven’t been sleeping too well?

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Every now and then, I like to give hubby a weekend project to keep him on his toes. Nah, I’m just kidding, but my little Saturday morning project turned into an enormous, time consuming, life sucking, entire weekend project. It all started out as a table for the aquaplay set to cut down on the mess. He was soaked and had to be bathed after playing the first night. I couldn’t see us having to give him a bath every time he played with it. So I suggested we use an old kitchen table in the storage building and cut the legs off. After getting a better visual of the size (which was much smaller than I remembered), we decided it needed a piece of plywood on top… Then that the plywood should be cut to the layout of the canal system. After hacking the legs off the old kitchen table, we decided it wasn’t really usable after all! So that will now be our outdoor art table for the super messy stuff (as well as a good place to do sensory play when we get into homeschooling).

Gotta love this guy, he’s so patient with my hairbrained ideas!

Oh well, at least he had help right? (See the shortened table with the legs laying underneath?!)

The handymen at work (I just realized, despite looking pretty lifelike, that is indeed a KIDS Craftsman saw in his hand! Just as an FYI!)

8000 screws later

Oh why must we overdo everything. It weighs approximately 9000 pounds, but at least it is functional

Here’s what I accomplished. Yay me. Luckily I had hubby to remind me of my ABC’s. No kidding…I was standing off to the side where I couldn’t see the letters on the opposite side of the box, basically where this picture was taken from (between the I and the O in the picture). I asked him what letter I was on, as I flipped through the remaining foam pieces. “L” he replied, “so you need M next.” Thanks dear.

If you’re smirking to yourself thinking, ‘what the heck is she gonna do with that hunk of wood in the winter?’ I’ve got that covered too! We painted the top green (and will paint the bottom structure and legs brown). When cold weather arrives and the Aquaplay can’t be left outside, I’ll take it off and paint a road system on the table with parking lots and buildings and stuff! I love doing stuff like that anyway.

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We checked off one thing on our summer to-do list already today. Item number ten was painting in the bathtub with homemade finger paints. I used the Wilton gel colors that can be found in the cake section at Walmart and barely dipped the tips of a fork in it. I used it very sparingly and cautiously in other words. Just don’t hold me accountable for your bathtub walls! I did use more cornstarch than it called for, but I also used a very watery soap. Make sure you use something that you know won’t cause a rash or skin irritation. I just mixed until I got a consistency that I thought was appropriate. It dripped a lot, and kind of washed itself as he went, since he splashed so much. But I didn’t even have to wipe down anything, I just rinsed the tub with the detachable shower head. He had so much fun with it, I may go get some containers from Walmart to make our own paints to keep in the bathroom. I’ll let you know if I make some sort of floating artist palette, the ice tray on the edge was a little precarious.

(Sorry if the colors in these pictures look off to anyone.  They look okay on my monitor which is calibrated fairly accurately, but they were edited heavily to reduce the lovely yellow-green glow of compact fluorescents.)

Starting to get a little wild and crazy

Hmmm, face paint

What should I do next?

HAHAHA, you don’t even want to know!! What’s that? You do want to know? Oh, well in that case…I’m painting my butt!

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    = Done = Click to read about it = Pictures included
  1. Build a sandcastle
  2. Have a picnic
  3. Lay in the grass and find shapes in the clouds
  4. Paint those clouds see link
  5. Plant some flowers
  6. Hang swings from a tree branch high above, and swing as high as we can
  7. Take our first camping trip (which will probably be in the early fall, because Mommy doesn’t do hot well)
  8. Build a campfire, cook hot dogs and smores
  9. Make a Nature Box see link
  10. Paint the bathtub see link
  11. Make an ice treasure see link
  12. Use a Chore Bucket see link
  13. Paint with puffy paint see link
  14. Make a treasure map and go on a hunt see link
  15. Make a dress up corner with lots of gaudy, fun clothes
  16. Two words: homemade popsicles
  17. Three more: homemade ice cream (in a bag in just five minutes!) see link
  18. Make a big batch of colored rice, all different colors. see link Make rice art.
  19. Fly a kite
  20. Feed the Charleys (giraffes) see link
  21. Catch lightning bugs and figure out how to make them light up in a jar
  22. Build/make a wooden boat, tie a string and sail it on a lake
  23. Ride a paddleboat
  24. Wave sparklers around for the 4th of July
  25. Make bubble solution and giant bubbles
  26. Put out a bird bath
  27. Bake Cupcake Cones see link
  28. Play hide and seek with flashlights at night
  29. Celebrate National Ice Cream Day (July 20th) with friends
  30. :More To Come:

I’ll admit, this list is more for my own benefit than anything…my computer is in desperate need of restarting. When internet browsers came up the the ‘tabs’ idea to contain so many open windows into one item when minimized on your taskbar, they had me in mind. Only I tend to abuse the privilege and open so many tabs in one window that I actually have to hit the arrow to scroll over, because they cannot all be shown on a 24 inch monitor! I didn’t want to bookmark all of the pages, as my bookmarks are already a semi organized mess. One single link from a blog already on my blogshelf turned into a two hour adventure hopping around blogland last night while everyone else was sleeping. I will be adding a button to my sidebar within the next couple days to have a visual (reminder) link to this post. I found so many excellent ideas last night. I’m off to restart my computer before it curses at me. I’ll continue adding to this list as I come up with more ideas.

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