My Sweet Little Jy-Jy Turned 6!

She sure did. She was so excited that she was in our room at 6:30 am to open her presents. Our tradition is to let the kids come into our room the morning of their birthday and they get to open their presents on our bed. Ok, so the root of the tradition is my laziness, but the kids like it.

Her most treasured gift is her Baby Alive. She fed it all four packs of "food" the first day, changed it's diaper about 20 times and never let it out of her sight. The batteries were going dead after about 24 hours, probably due to her constant playing! The building blocks behind her in this picture have been a big hit too, even with my older kids.

During the day we had an Alice in Wonderland themed birthday party. We started with our tea party. Heart shaped sandwiches, fruit, and kool-aid. H2 had made little place cards that were really cute. I love the one in this picture that says "Mad Hater".

We opened presents and the kids played for a little bit. Everyone was very interested in H3's new baby.

Then we did a craft project and made Alice in Wonderland ID tag necklaces.

Then it was cupcake time! H3 is very bugged that you can't see her in the picture. She's hidden in the back there. Oh well.

We saved the cake for dinnertime. Here's a close up:

She blew out her candle : )

It was all a lot of fun. I have another 2 parties to plan in the next month when H1 and H2 have theirs!

I've also made some dresses these past couple of weeks. The first one I did was for H3:

Then I made one for H2, but don't have a picture of that one yet. I had a bit of leftover material and decided to make one for this cute little girl. Love it!

Oh What Do You Do in the Summertime?

We've been keeping busy, and it has been so much fun! The day after school let out, the kids had a "late over" with some friends. We had pizza, watched Wallace and Grommit (at least I wish they would have), and had cupcakes. The cupcakes had little "carrots" growing out of them.

We got 6 month passes to the Gateway Discovery Children's Museum. We've only been once so far, but plan on going more. The kids really enjoyed it. I think the girls enjoyed the play town the most, and H1 liked the building toys the most. Here he is waiting for time to pass so that we can go upstairs to his favorite part:

And helping my friend's little twinner play with the balls:

H3 made my heart melt as she played and played with the babies in the little house:

H2 liked sitting up high on this horse:

We also had Lagoon day with DH's work. The weather was fabulous and we had a really great time. While we were there, I forced the family to do this:

We have also really enjoyed Classic Fun Center. We have memberships for the summer that make everything really inexpensive. H3 has played laser tag for the first time and gotten to play in their Ball Blast play area (which looks fun enough that I would like to try it myself). The girls have had fun on the bouncy toys and the skating rink and track. All in all, it's fabulous because the kids get exercise and I get a chance to read for a bit.

H3 on the slides.....I can hear her squealing all the way across the place : )

H3 isn't quite coordinated for skates yet, so we tried out a scooter and she loved it. She'll be getting one of her own for her upcoming birthday (along with a Baby Alive). I can't believe she'll be 6! That's H2 on the roller blades....she's really good at it!

I wish they didn't enjoy the games so much, but they beg and beg, so I let them do a few each time.

I've also been busy sewing things and planning for my new business venture with my friend Kari. We are starting a fabric business and sewing/crafting blog. We will be starting out with Riley Blake quilting fabric (soooo cute) which we will have available on etsy shortly. Our blog will be full of tutorials on how to make all kinds of things. Our first tutorial is for this skirt made from a pair of old jeans or pants.

I love the logo my talented DH made for us!

You can check us out at www.twocraftycritters.blogspot.com

Disneyland and So Forth

We recently got back from a fabulous vacation to Disneyland. It was so fun. I'm bummed that it's over. Anyway, we drove to Mesquite on a Friday afternoon after the kids got out of school and spent a night there. That only left 5 more hours to drive on Saturday. We stayed at the adorable Candy Cane Inn on Harbor Blvd. I stole this pic online so you could see how cute it is.

We immediately picked up our Disneyland tickets. Our original plan had been to get 2-day passes, but because of the deal they were running, we ended up with 5 day passes. It was really nice to be able to spread out our time at the park. I have a Disney rewards card, so we have a little tradition of visiting the Disney store in Downtown Disney on our first night there so that the kids can each choose a souvenir. The kids love it. They are very thoughtful about their choices.

I was impressed with the bravery of the kids this time. They all rode Splash Mountain, although none of them liked it. The little girls cried on that one. H1 went on it one other time with DH. H2 wanted to ride Tower of Terror with me, which is my favorite ride. She did pretty good on it, which convinced H1 to try it with DH. Everyone but H3 rode Space Mountain too. The lines weren't too bad, but we still ended up doing a lot of this (waiting in line):

We really liked the new "Toy Story Mania" ride. We waited in line FOREVER for it on Sunday, but when we went back by on Tuesday the wait wasn't quite so long. This Mr. Potato Head would talk with people in the line. H3 and H1 were in the right spot at the right time on Tuesday.

H1 rode Space Mountain twice, and this is what he did both times (DH had to pull a face for the camera):

On Mother's Day we went to the Orange County Swap Meet. I love shopping, and I love a good deal, so I love this place. I got some really cute jeans and capris there, the girls got the dresses in the picture above, and H1 and DH got a guitar.

We also wanted to visit the beach, so after the swap meet we headed to Ventura beach. We didn't spend much time there because it was chilly and windy. A few days later we headed to Huntington Beach but it wasn't great beach weather that day either. We played in the sand a bit, and then the poor girls both fell in the surf within moments of each other and both started crying. So sad. We headed to the hotel to play in the pool instead.

We celebrated my birthday by having a yummy (and, unfortunately, expensive) lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. Who would have thought the souvenir sports bottles were $6.99 a piece!! The waitress just told me that all you had to do was order an Icee. Dang expensive Icees!

It was a great trip, a little exhausting, but super fun.

After we got home and had some time to recuperate, I decided to paint my kitchen/living room area. The project is almost done. I'm still waiting on some rust colored curtains for the sliding door.

School is almost out. We've had a busy couple of weeks with a dance recital, gymnastics exposition, and kindergarten graduation. Right now I can only upload the graduation photos because I'm a nerd and took the other ones without the memory card in the camera. I'll have to have DH find the cord to get the other pics off of the camera so that I can get to them. Here is H3 getting her diploma from the school director.

Sew Busy!

We have had a busy few weeks at our house! Spring break was a lot of fun. We kicked it off by having an Easter party at our house. We decorated the house and spent hours on cupcakes. We had a Cafe Rio style dinner.

We had the kids' Easter egg hunt.

And then we had another hunt for the adults and big kids. Each egg had a code in it and only one would open the lock box. J won the $20 gift card that was inside (her little brother helped her open the box)

After the party, H1 and H2 headed off to Bountiful to hang out with their cousins. H3 stayed here with us and enjoyed dying eggs and going to Pier 49 Pizza.

We had a couple of croupy kids that week, but once they were better we spent an afternoon at Classic Fun Center.

H1 lucked out that Friday because he went back up to his cousin's to spend another night and missed his dentist appointment. It turned out to be a good thing for all of us, because H2's appointment took forever and I was glad to not have to be there even longer. H3 was a great helper for her sister and held her hand while she got her shot. We celebrated H2's bravery with a trip for ice cream on the way home.

H1 got his turn the next week. We got H2's mouth finished up and one side of his done. I wish we had flouride in the water here! I've finally bought flouride rinse for them in the hopes it will help them out. Poor H1 was very scared and I was proud of him for being so brave. Thank goodness for nitrous! H3 was a great helper again. She would be with H2 and say "Oh! I better go check on H1!" and off she would go. We stopped for ice cream again, but H2 was a little frustrated that it kept dripping out of her mouth and down her shirt!

Other than that, I've been very busy sewing my heart out. I just keep finding new things that I want to make.

I'm working on another quilt that is made from a pattern I wanted to make many years ago before I had ever quilted before. I took a break from that when I ran out of one of my fabrics and had to order more. Here is a preview that I created in Photoshop:

The pattern is called Storm at Sea. I love the way the curves in it are optical illusions. It'll be fun to see this one finished. While I was waiting for the fabric to arrive, I became obsessed with some pillow cases I found on someone's blog and HAD to make some. I've done quite a few now with plans to do some more. H2's is in progress right now and I'm working on some to give as a wedding gift along with a set of sheets.

H1's pillowcase I actually made a while back. Crochet is too girly for a boy anyway : )

Then H2 started asking me when I was ever going to make something for her to wear. Well......I had to take the challenge. I found a tutorial online so that I didn't have to buy a pattern. I even had some extra frabric. Here is H2 modeling for you:

And last but not least, with Mother's Day coming up soon, I decided to make this apron for my Mother in Law. I think H3 looks pretty cute in it!

Whew! I think that's it for what we've been up to!