weekend fun

The weather was finally nice enough to play outside. The wind took a lot of the snow away, but we still found some for sledding. The kids had so much fun. And it made me feel better about only having the energy to clean half the house!

Roman the crazy driver in mid crash.

Lucky little Finn still gets pulled up the hill, so he was all smiles the whole time!
I tried one run, the belly kinda gets in the way. So Brad's 6'4" is squished on behind Finn. Lucky grandma and grandpa came too to help with the hauling of kids and sleds around.

i love my serger

My present from Brad and my parents this year was a serger. I love it! The first thing I made with it is these crate covers for our bedroom. We have a ton of open shelving in the built ins beside the window seat in our room. But we wanted to use some of the space for clothes storage. And I wanted to stick with the whole white on white thing I got going on.
Found the tutorial here. It's great because she tells you how to take measurements for whatever size crate you have and then how to adjust the pattern. Very easy to make. So 4 crates, $5 a piece at Walmart and some fabric I had lying around that I think only cost about $5 from the clearance section at Fabricland = $25 total.

In other sewing news... like anyone cares but maybe Rhonda! I like to have one of the kids Christmas presents be something I made. So in addition to the angry birds this year here are their presents from me.
Finn got a cape to match Romans.
Here is the caped crusader in one of his favorite places. The ottoman that I fill with random toys that get left in the living room. Sound like a real comfortable place to sit eh. Strange kids I have!
It's a good thing his present was so easy to sew because Romans was probably the hardest thing I have ever sewn.
All fall he was convinced Santa would bring him a jet pack. A real working jet pack. I finally convinced him you had to be an astronaut to have one. So he says, okay mom how about you just make me one then. It needs to be red. It needs rockets. It needs wings. WHAT! Um okay, here goes nothing as I save it to a week before Christmas. I can hear you now Lindsay - why didn't you just buy the blow up Buzz Lightyear jet pack? Because I'm cheap and a sucker for punishment okay!
The inside is a piece of foam. The cover for the foam wasn't hard, and the red "rockets" weren't bad. The problem was the wings. I wandered around home depot for awhile and found random stuff in the plumbing section to use. And the hard part was making the pocket for the wings to be stored in. But if I can brag a bit, I think it turned out pretty cool! So the wings are hooked on by elastic and come out of their little pocket to stick into some random plumbing thing that is glued into the felt. Make sense? But Romans favorite thing about the jet pack, besides snapping and unsnapping the buckles a millions times, is the fuel indicator. There are pulls on each end to make the red fuel line go up or down. Here we wings folded in and almost out of rocket fuel.
I'm glad he loves it so much, but I will never again make another jet pack as long as I live.

santa's sleigh... a little late!

So Christmas is well behind us now, but I have to post this because I love it. And I can't kid myself that next year I will get around to posting it.
My plant ledge was looking a little sparse with decorations all around the house. Found a sleigh by searching for clip art online. Had Brad cut me some scraps of wood at the shop. Used my mom's projector to enlarge and trace the outline. Then painted and antiqued it with wood stain. So easy! Easy to store too as it is 3 pieces. I'm thinking to concept could be cute in a kids room. Maybe on canvas. Like an airplane or something.

angry birds

Seriously one of my kids favorite Christmas presents.
They both love the game and saw the advertisement on the game - gotta love how they do that - for the angry bird toys.
Roman was just sure he was going to get one for Christmas. Not going to happen.
But then I came across the tutorial by obsessively stitching on how to make the red angry bird!
I used the same pattern for the blue one and changed up the face a bit. Then made up the yellow one by cutting 4 triangles for the body. They both got a set. I made my cute nephew Eli a bird too and I am so happy he loves it as much as my kids do!
Obsessively stitching has since added tutorials for all the birds and the pigs. We made some pigs yesterday. And by we I mean the kids helped by watching movies and eating treats and not bugging me while I made them. Ha ha!
So for family night (after a wonderfully spiritual lesson of course) we took turns making towers out of Roman's other favorite present and the kids had a blast throwing their angry birds to get the pigs. Do you remember these big cardboard blocks when we were kids? One of Santa's better ideas, Roman loves to build with them. I highly recommend them. Only problem is they take up tons of room.
So go make some angry birds and throw them around the house. I promise you will soon be addicted to the cute little things.

happy new year!

What better way to spend New Years Eve than with a humidifier, vicks vapor rub, and cuddling a coughing toddler. Who am I kidding I was too lazy to go out anyway. Brad got our island pieces stained though! Just think, when we finally finish everything on the house it will be like a new house all over again.

So Roman was looking over my shoulder when I was looking at a friends blog post about her son's birthday and he was right upset I don't have pictures of his birthday. Um, can you really go back 10 months and put up pictures of something? Is that allowed in blog land? I guess maybe if I disguise it as a look back at 2010 it will work right?
So here goes, a few things the blog missed in 2010...

Roman's robot birthday party - 4th birthday
Summer at the Lake
Halloween
Best friends
Christmas
Whenever Brad wears a Lakers t shirt these two mini Brads thing they need their Lakers gear on. I don't like boys in purple, but apparently I'm outvoted.
Our book advent calendar - the kids LOVED it!
Painting presents for grandmas.
They loved their Santa hats.
Christmas eve pajamas.
Opening presents. Finn wasn't too impressed that present opening was cutting into his morning routine, but after a little chocolate and seeing a few toys he was good to go. Roman took many breaks to play with his toys before moving on. Santa's present of huge building blocks was a hit!