Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner

I realized today that it had been a long time since I posted about a favorite book.  Lately the kids and I have been laughing our heads off about this one.  I've had this book for a long time, maybe from clear back to when I was teaching and getting book order books, I'm not quite sure.  I have heard great things about it off and on, but I remember trying to read it to Blake one time when he was little and thinking it wasn't that great.  I really have no idea what was wrong with me!  Paige picked it out to read a while ago and it is just hilarious!  I don't know if the problem was that I just didn't get into it and try and do the voices and stuff with Blake or what.  I can't for the life of me figure out why I wouldn't have just loved this book.  It is a story about a siamese cat who thinks he is a chihuahua and does all kinds of crazy stuff.  One caveat, if you are going to read this book you need to be prepared to really get into it.  You need to be willing to read it doing the funny voices and everything or you will lose out in a big way.  I am sure that must have been my problem previously.  The more kids I have the less self conscious I become ( I have yet to decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing).  I know there are several more books about Skippyjon that I haven't got.  I'm thinking that will be something to check out at the library this summer.

Flower Bracelet Tutorial

This was the easiest bracelet ever to make, but a little tricky to try and photograph on myself.  Sorry about the weird angle.  I made a bunch of these flowers awhile ago to use for a couple of different projects and I planned on getting some alligator clips and gluing them on for hairbows for my girls.  I keep forgetting to buy the clips and in the meantime came up with this.  I went to put some tights on Paige that were actually too small, but we needed white and that was what was clean, anyway, as we pulled them on, we discovered a huge hole and had to find something else.  I was thinking about trying to use the ruined tights to make some head bands, so I just cut across one of the legs and made a strip about 1/2 inch wide, to see if the size was right.  Evidently, when making baby or child headbands, you need to use adult size tights, this band didn't even come close to fitting Brynne's head (not that it matters because she hates anything on her head), but I noticed the itty-bitty headband was the perfect size for my wrist.  I grabbed one of the flowers I had made for hair bows and wip stitched it to the mini-headband and ta-da, perfect bracelet that for once cannot be ruined by small children.  Unfortunately, Paige has decided that she loves it and it has to be wrapped double around her tiny wrist and is now stretched out to the point it no longer fits me.  We decided we will be going through all the old t-shirts in the house and looking for fabric to make more colors.  The flower is just a strip cut from an old t-shirt, about 2 inches by 18 inches.  Then use a sewing machine set to the loosest stitch length and sew down the middle of your strip.  Then take the top string from one side and pull.  the strip will ruffle and you just fold it in half.  take a needle and thread and start rolling it in to itself until it looks like a rosebud then start whipstitching it together.  When it looks the way you want, you are done.  There are a million different types of flower tutorials online and any one would work for this type of bracelet.  I also think it would be cute with 3 different sized flowers all sewn onto the bracelet. 

Surprise!

This is what I found on the kitchen counter the other day when I got out of the shower.  When I asked Paige what was going on she explained that she only likes middles.  Nice.  I guess the sandwiches for Blake's lunch will be middleless!  Just so you know, I love homemade whole wheat bread and make it in my Bosch fairly frequently, but my children will choose the nasty no-name loaf of white bread over homemade yumminess.  I have no idea what is wrong with them!  Brynne is my only hope.  So far she really doesn't like the white stuff, but she will eat tons of the homemade kind.

A Home for the Mermaids

We got mini Barbie mermaids in the happy meals at McDonalds yesterday.  Paige was so excited.  On the way home I mentioned that I thought I had some fabric we could use to make a sea for the mermaids.  I shouldn't have mentioned it because of course to a 3 year old that means it has to be done immediately.  After lots of asking, I finally got around to it this morning after Brynne went down for her nap.  We used a bunch of leftover felt scraps and the "beach" is some leftover Warm and Natural batting.  Trying to come up with stuff that mermaids use is rather difficult.  When I first suggested that we make some "beach towels" that could also be pockets to store the mermaids in, I was informed that mermaids don't use beach towels.  I finally convinced her that they sometimes need them to dry their hair.  You can't really see it, but I sewed a ribbon on the back so that I can roll the whole thing up and tie it for storage and carrying around.  By the way, I have about had it with the rain!  I am smack in the middle of an outdoor spray painting project and the rain is really causing me problems. 

Scholastic Warehouse Book Sale

My girls and I went to the Scholastic Warehouse book sale this week.  It is a dangerous place for me because most of their books are 50% off and they e-mail coupons that take additional amounts off.  You never know what you may find, but they tend to have lots of the most current and popular kids books.  I tried to focus on getting stuff for my 8 year old son to read over the summer and stuff that I could read aloud to him.  I naturally stock up on books the girls will love because they tend to be the same things that I love.  It is harder to try and think like an 8 year old boy.  I was excited to find a cd of a bunch of the Flat Stanley books.  I read a bunch of these to Blake when he was in kindergarten and first grade and his teacher this year did a project about Flat Stanley, so it has become a bit of a favorite here.  I am hoping to have Blake listen to the CD's and follow along in his books some over the summer.  He is at the point with reading where it would really help him to work on fluency and reading so everything comes together.  He always wants to read stuff that is too hard and then he misses the story because he gets stuck on so many words. Scholastic holds their sales all over the country and they happen several times a year.  If you haven't already, go to their website and sign up to get their e-mails.  You will love all the book deals!

Mother's Day

I had a fantastic Mother's Day complete with some jewelry from my favorite place, Brighton Jewelry and my daughter singing with the other primary kids for the first time in Sacrament meeting (there is nothing as great as watching your sunbeam sing in primary!).  I also got what seemed like a ridiculous present at first.  When I opened it,  I looked at my husband like he had truly lost his mind, but the more I have thought about it, the more I have realized what a wonderful present it is, in fact it may be one of the best I have gotten.  My husband and son went shopping just the two of them yesterday and picked out my jewelry and then they went to Barnes and Noble and my son picked out the book Football for Dummies for me.  For those who don't know me very well, sports is not my thing.  I don't hate sports, I just tend to see them as a social event.  I happen to be married to and have a son that live, eat and breathe sports.  There is always some sort of game on TV at our house.  I have even caught my husband watching pool and bowling on TV a few times.  I have learned to be sure to plan activities based around the BYU football schedule and Duke basketball schedule.  Anyway, when I opened the book, my husband informed me that my son specifically wanted me to read it and learn all about the rules of football.  In all honesty, I can think of very few things that sound more boring to me and the fact that he was saying it was important to my son meant I was actually going to have to do it.  Later in the day, I was telling a family member about this gift and sort of rolling my eyes and she said, " you know in a way, it is really sweet".  Well, that got me thinking and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that she was right.  I talked to my son and said that what would make the book really great for me would be if we could read it together.  He lit right up and said, "How about if I start reading it out loud to you for my 20 minutes of reading for my homework today".  Amazingly, he read it better than the book his teacher sent home for his homework even though it is a much harder book and I didn't have to nag him about it for even a minute.  Plus, he wanted to bring it over to his grandparents house for in case he had some extra time to read it and he begged to stay up just a few minutes later so he could finish a chapter.  I realized that both Blake and my husband had thought about the fact that I love to read and had chosen a gift for me that involved something I love and something they love.  On top of their thoughtfulness, I recieved an even better gift.  I got to see my son loving a book and loving reading in way that I have been waiting for since he was first born.  I love that for Mother's Day I got to see him begin to discover the same love of reading that I have and that I have been working so hard to help him develop!  Thanks Kyle and Blake for making my day so special!

Ruby's

One of my sister-in-law's first introduced me to Ruby's a few years ago.  She grew up in Southern California where you can find Ruby's scattered along the piers up the coastline.  We began our recent family vacation in the LA area and since my husband and kids had not experienced Ruby's we decided to head to the Huntington Beach Ruby's.  It was only about 20 minutes from the hotel we were staying in and it was definitely worth it.  It is the perfect place for kids.  The only negative was the lack of public bathrooms!  Ruby's is a '50's style diner located at the very tip of the pier.  To get to it we got to walk out along the pier and see all the fisherman and watch them catching and cleaning their fish (3 and 7 year olds are fascinated by the gore), then we got to go up on the roof and eat our food looking out over the ocean.  It was perfect!  It was pretty cold that night, so instead of shakes, we got hot chocolate with our burgers and fries, but Ruby's is prepared, we got to sit next to a heater and were still able to watch all the seagulls.  If you are headed to Southern California, Ruby's is a definite must stop!