Bandanna skirt

I finally got around to making Zoey's skirt!  It was really a fun project and took me about 2 hours.  I really like to sew, it's more satisfying than crocheting or knitting, you get results so fast.  I got the idea from Pinterest, my favorite.  I'm feeling much more confident with my sewing, I'm excited to tackle Zoey and Charlotte's costumes for Halloween.  I hope they turn out too! Here's where I found out how to do this skirt.

Here's how I started it.

I got 2 bandannas from Hobby Lobby, I think they were 2 for $1.  I looked through a box of Zoey's old clothes that are too small and found a t-shirt for the waist band.  I really liked doing this because then I didn't have to sew a space for the elastic to go, I was able to thread it right into the bottom hem. 

The pattern said I needed to cut a hole in the middle along with a line from the middle to the center.  The holes spread out to become the top of the skirt and the points drop down to form the flowy part.  I needed a 5 inch circle and my "coffee-Jerry" jar as Zoey calls it, was a perfect thing to use. 

This grumpy girl was NOT happy with the sewing project, I'm not sure if she was tired or just didn't feel like watching me try to cut and sew so she was crying at me.  I kept trying to take a picture of her woo-wooing but every time I raised the camera to take it she would immediately stop and look at me.  The little stinker! She finally took a nap in the swing, which still works beautifully thanks to Beau!

Back to the skirt, I pinned the right sides together down one side and sewed it.  After I did this it made one long piece of fabric with the points hanging down.  Now I needed to sew the t-shirt material onto the top.  I took a picture but it turns out I did it completely wrong and had to rip the whole thing out.  After I finally figured out what the heck I was doing I sewed the top to the bandannas.

While I was doing this I didn't realize some of the fabric got bunched and I accidentally sewed it and had to rip that out too and start over.  Haha Zoey saw me ripping it all out at that point and seemed very doubtful I could make her a skirt. I finally finished it and had to sew the other sides together and then thread the elastic.

I've never done it before but it was really easy!  I had to sew that up too.

Here it is!! I'm so excited I actually did it, I don't even care it's crooked haha.

The back is a little more even.

She had to give it a twirl!

Whew! I'm so glad I got to it, it was a really fun project even if I had to start over a couple times! Zoey wore it to school and it didn't even come apart at the seams.  I was really worried about this for some reason, that she would be walking along and it would just fall off in pieces. Thank goodness it didn't haha!

By the way, see our pretty green grass? We finally mowed it today but Beau has been working really hard on it.  Weed and feed and watering it faithfully sure has turned it around!  I actually had one of our neighbors tell me today that our yard is making the other neighbors look bad haha.  It hasn't been green all summer, so we are definitely appreciating it now. 

I better get busy with my next project, the costumes.  I only have a month, I hope I can get it done!

Birthday party

The other day our neighbor's little girl Zara had a birthday party.  Zoey was so excited to go and I wanted to do something cute for her so I decided to look on Pinterest and see what I could find.  I found a homemade fort kit.  How cute is that?  I figured it wouldn't be too hard to do so Zoey and I set out to get the supplies.  We found most of the stuff at The Dollar Store.

Everything you see here we found there, including the bag!  I was shocked there was such a cute canvas bag there.  I found some clamps at Home Depot, the sheet from Wal-Mart, and I cut up an old t-shirt for the strings.  I think it probably cost between $13-$15.  I'm pretty proud of myself! Here's what I did.

Cut up the shirt.  It was really a dark red, it just looks pink in the picture

Sewed the strings onto the sheet.

It's all in there, a great fit!

The Dollar Store even had these cute luggage tags so I put one on that said "Zara's Fort Kit"

It took me less than an hour to get sewed and set up and was a super fun project to do.  Zoey was really impressed so I think I'm going to make her one for Christmas.  Here's some pics from the b-day party. 

The birthday girl!

Cutie-pie Xander

Hahaha I love this pic she's such a silly girl

She enjoyed sitting in her stroller and watching the kiddos play

Swinging!

Right after this picture my camera's batteries ran out.  I wish it had a better feature to warn me the batteries are low!  I'm working on making a bandanna skirt for Zoey today, we will see how my next Pinterest adventure goes! 

Swinging again!

One of Charlotte's favorite things by far has to be her swing.  She loves it!  It was given to us for free by some friends of ours, which was totally awesome of them, and we have definitely gotten some use out of it.  I even made Beau take the thing apart and shove it in our car for our trip to Kansas! It was such a life-saver there too.  About a week ago one day Charlotte was napping and swinging away and it just stopped.  I thought oh great, the batteries are dead or something, but nope.  The birds moved and tweeted and the music played away.  No swinging at all.  Ugh!  For the next few days Charlotte still used it but one of us nudged her with our foot or just gave her a push now and then.  Zoey even got recruited a couple times to give her sister a push when she fussed.  The other night Beau had enough and did some research on how to fix it. Turns out, lots of people have had this problem and you can easily fix it with an air freshener!  You must think I'm crazy, here's how he did it.

He bought one of these:

Come to find out the motor in one of these things is the exact same motor in the swing! Crazy! He took the whole thing apart.

He's got his serious face on

He took the old motor out and soldered the new one in. 

Charlotte was waiting patiently for Daddy to finish.

She was getting ready to have some cereal. Which she looooves by the way.

After he got it all hooked up it the motor worked fine but it still wouldn't turn on to swing.  I guess the electric part where the switch makes it go faster or slower went bad too.  He re-wired the turny birds part to go to the swinging part and had to take away 2 of the batteries or it would swing on super fast mode haha.  We didn't really use the birds anyway so not a big deal, as long as it swings!  Since it's only getting half power if you turn on the music it sounds all drunk and drawn out. Makes us giggle. 

At this point the only way to turn it on or off was to take out one of the batteries.  Beau was so worried that was trashy and decided it needed a switch.  He drilled the hole.

Voila!  New and improved awesome switch!  Complete with an on and off tab.  Charlotte is so thankful (Mom is too by the way) and I am so amazed by Beau. I never could have done something like this and I really appreciate him taking his day off to work on it.  I think the project cost us $14 including the soldering iron so you can't beat that either!  Thanks Beau, you sure did a great job!

Zoey had a GREAT week at school last week, she ended up getting another purple dot and finished the week with a green.  That is 2 more prizes after the chapstick!  After we grabbed the switch we stopped by Target and she picked out a pom-pom pen.

Yay Zoey! Friday we ran to The Dollar Tree for her 3rd prize and she picked finger nail polish, we haven't had a chance to try it on yet.  I'm so proud of her and she was very proud of herself.  Keep up the good work! 

This is Beau's weekend to work so we have been sticking around the house.  We had a birthday party at the neighbors and I made her a super cute gift, I'll have to do a post about it.  It was a big hit! Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Spider cookies

This weekend the Zo-meister and I made some spider cookies.  I found them on good ol' Pinterest, I still can't get enough of that site! 

Started by breaking the pretzel sticks in half

Spreading the peanut butter

Dipped the tops in chocolate and used mini Reese's Pieces for the eyes

Pretty cute! She ended up putting a bunch more eyes on after

It was fun making them with her, I think she had fun too. She wouldn't stop licking her fingers after every dip so she had to wash her hands a million times but that's ok too.

Poor Charlotte was hanging out with Daddy while Zoey and I were making cookies and he must have been pretty boring!  She was a sleepy girl.


Zoey's school has this behavior system where every day they are rated on dots.  Green dot = good day. Yellow dot = not so good, had to have a warning about something, Red dot = not good at all.  The plus side is you can get a purple dot which is better than average and a gold star means you were spectacular that day.  Well, Zoey came home yesterday with a purple dot!  She was so proud of herself and we promised her if she got a purple dot or a gold star we would take her to get a little prize.  A couple weeks ago she got a red dot so we were hoping the prize incentive would give her a boost.  Off we went to Target to get a little something and after lots and lots of looking, this is what she picked:

Cracked me up, she is sooo happy with her "cimmanin" chapstick.  She couldn't wait to show her dad when he got home from work.  I hope she keeps up with her good behavior, it's a lot more fun than bad days!

Charlotte Beth

I took my baby girl in for her check-up this week and she's doing so great.  I figured I would do a little baby Charlotte post! She weighs 13.6 pounds, 22 inches long and her head was 15 1/2 inches.  I knew her head grew because she can fit into her headbands now haha.  I can't believe she's already 4 months old! Here's where it all started... 

I love this picture, it looks like I'm in a birthing documentary or something haha

There she is! And she was MAD

I like how just my head's poking out

I think she looks like Mr. Magoo a little bit haha

Haha she was still a little mad

Nana and Papa

She was born May 2nd and weighed 8 pounds 14.5 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long.  It was a scheduled C-Section which was so amazing because we were able to plan for my parents to come and I was able to take a week off from work to rest up.  We went back and forth on names for almost my whole pregnancy but Charlotte was the top runner.  I loved the name Piper, Beau didn't, we liked Shiloh for a while, my mom definitely didn't like that one.  We got Charlotte locked down and then went through a bunch of middle names.  I really love her name and Charlotte Beth fits her well. 

So happy my Mom and Dad were able to come, they were a great help!

Holding sister for the first time :)

All of her hair!

Going home

We had lots of visitors come see us in the hospital, it was so fun!  Charlotte was ticked off the whole first day and we had a pretty rough night, no thanks to a nurse that ticked Mama off.  Her doctor came to check her out and told me she had a heart murmur so she had to get her heart looked at.  I guess there is a valve that is supposed to shut as soon as they are born and hers didn't.  The next day they came back and it had closed up. Whew.  We were a little worried there for a while.  She got the pass to go home and we booked it outta there!

First bath

At her check-up the doctor told me I could start giving her some rice if I wanted so we tried it the other evening.  She loved the first bite, didn't know about the second, and hated the third! Haha she eats a little bit here and there, but we are working on it.  She's such a great baby, sleeps through the night 80% of the time, the other nights she wakes up to eat and goes right back to sleep so it's really not too bad.  She has the sweetest temperament but doesn't like other people to hold her sometimes.  She loves her Mama!  She loves laughing at Zoey and Zoey absolutely adores her.  I hope she still likes her when Charlotte is mobile and starts playing with her toys!

Hope everyone has a great weekend, we are hoping to check out the Abilene Fair, military gets in free this year and Beau got some free tickets to a Rangers game on Sunday so we are probably going to go check that out too!