Grandpa Style

   Another OwlyBaby pattern!  She had a 50% off patterns sale, and this was on my wish list!

   It's her Darling Cardigan pattern, made from an old t-shirt--thanks, Cooley Construction! And some white ribbing and old buttons.  Super easy and super cute!

My Little Waitress...

I got a chance to test OwlyBaby's new Playdate dress pattern this week!

  I love to test patterns, because I always learn something new---and I am on a deadline, which is when I actually get focused and productive!

   The pattern itself was pretty easy to follow--I made quite a few mistakes, of course, so I am super happy that it came out looking okay!  Yay! Cosette actually put it on before the buttons were sewn on and refused to take it off, so that's a good sign!

So here is Coco in her cute little dress! I think she looks like a little waitress!

I used some medium-weight pink cotton for the dress, daisy buttons, and a small piece of my precious Japanese patchwork linen for the apron, which Coco calls her "napkin". And uses it as such.

Such a cutie, eh? But this is the real Coco...

Aahhh, 3 year olds! I see more of these dresses in the future for sure--if she is going to act like a zombie/vampire/pony, she needs to look girly doing it!

KCWC Day 2

  For Day 2, I crocheted my 3 year old a cat hat, as she doesn't really need more clothes.

The cat pose!

   

Okay, maybe she does need more clothes--I just didn't want to sew! She did need a hat, though :)

   After I put the kids to bed, I got way too caught up in a couple of episodes of Walking Dead Season 2 that just got put up on Netflix.  I have a weakness for zombie shows! I crocheted during the extremely scary parts.  This is just your basic beanie with some rough draft ears I attempted and a bow made from crocheting a strip and then wrapping yarn around the center to look like a bow. Tada!

After I put this hat on her, she found some face paint and wanted to be a cat.  She meowed on the couch for a good half hour like this.  Good times...

KCWC Day 1

This week is Elsie Marley's Kids Clothes Week Challenge!

    I always like to play along, because it is fun! Hundreds of people sign up, which is awesome, and kids clothes are a lot easier and quicker to make than adult clothes!

This time around, I have a new(ish) baby to sew for!  Here is what I did on Day 1:

Q is mastering the stand!

    I used Lil Blue Boo's Sienna Dress Pattern as my basic raglan-sleeve tee pattern, just shortening the pattern to make it a shirt.  Then, I used Shwin and Shwin's free Reversible Baby Pants Pattern for the pants, which are a perfect fit for my 8 month old. This entire outfit is upcycled from a pair of shorts and a couple of shirts in the Goodwill pile. Gotta love that!

Lately...

It's been a while since I've blogged.  My little baby is now a crawler, which means that I can no longer plop him down and go about my random business as he watches me from a sitting position.

Here is what I've realized about myself--there are 12 things that I love or need to do in my free time.

These are:

--Reading for fun
--Reading for enrichment--finance, Hypnobabies required reading, scriptures, etc.
--Watching shows with my hubby
--Exercising
--Practicing Piano
--Attempting to teach myself guitar
--Reviewing my kanji (for fun, because I know I will end up in Japan at some point)
--Crocheting
--Looking up new recipes and creating menu plans
-- Memorizing poems
--Searching for and enjoying new music
--Sewing

**I also have a "30 by 30" list I am working on (I will share that later) and am attempting to get my Doctorate in Language Arts in Celestial University (a Relief Society goal-setting program)**

Daily allotted free time for above activities: about 2 hours if everyone sleeps well.
Activities that did not make the cut: blogging (obviously) and surfing the Internet.  Even Pinterest is overwhelming to me lately.

I am trying to find that elusive balance of taking care of myself and taking care of everything else! I think it can be done, and even include blogging, if I am very wise about my "screen time". 

We will see...or, I guess, you will see...if I blog again soon.  I probably will start blogging all the time, now that there are many more things I need to be doing :)

Watch, Read, and Listen

I have been immersing myself in English media--hooray!  Of course, I still love you, Monkey Majik!  Just needed a break from trying to learn Japanese lyrics for a while...

Let's start with:

LISTEN:
  "So They Say" from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog has been stuck in my head for a week! I guess I asked for that one, though--I've watched Dr. Horrible a few times this past week, since I realized it was on Netflix!  I never get tired of that show, and it's only 45 minutes long!

READ:

  A Wrinkle in Time series by Madeleine L'Engel.  Fox has never read them, and I have only read the first one.  I actually wanted to get the set for my birthday but didn't want to pay Amazon's prices ($25).  Well, I found them on eBay and got the whole set for 99 cents (plus $5 shipping)!  Brand new--I can't believe that I actually won a 99 cent bid!  I'm so excited!


WATCH:

  Junky TV!  There really haven't been many movies that I've wanted to see lately.  So, I am watching the Bachelorette--and I make Fox watch it with me.  And then I call my grandma and talk about it with her, so it's a bonding thing with my grandma, you see.

Emily is too cute!  And Arie (that guy) looks like my little brother!

   Fox and I are working our way through Vampire Diaries Season 2 on Netflix as well.  Not that I am a particular fan of vampire stuff--I am just a particular fan of this guy:

Yep, that's Boone from LOST playing the tortured older vampire brother!

 We need a better show, though.  The CW only casts angsty beautiful 30 year olds to play high school students, which gets a little annoying after a while.  I take points off for any show that shows girls waking up in fully-done makeup!

So that's what's been on my media roster lately! Are there any good movies to get excited about?!

I Love America!

  Our little family returned to America from Japan 2 months ago.  We came back knowing it was time to return, although we have no job, no car, and no home.  We are living with my parents in a desert city with a skyrocketing crime rate, the highest unemployment percentage in California, and pretty much nothing in the way of entertainment for kids.

And yet, I have never been happier!

  That should say a lot about our living conditions in Japan, or as I like to call it "our year of discomfort".  Don't get me wrong--I love Japan and would even live there again in the right circumstances.

But--there are 3 things here that have really made me love and appreciate America and count my blessings every day that we are back!

1.) Family

My mom playing with her buddy Q

   I have been so lucky and blessed to be able to see at least 1 of my siblings every week since we returned, and of course my wonderful parents on a daily basis.  Everyone who knows my dad knows that he is amazing with babies, so Quincy loves it! My mom is a former 1st grade teacher, so her house is like a little preschool! I missed my brothers and sisters so much, so it is wonderful to see more of them!


2.) Food

  Literally every time I have eaten a meal since our return, I have shouted my praise of America! We went from eating white bread and white rice and cake doughnuts (sadly, the densest snack I could find for my kids that wasn't white rice) to whole grains and almonds and sweet potatoes and salmon burgers.  I am in heaven, and Claussen's pickles, $2 watermelons, and the cereal aisle are my angels.

3.) Books, Magazines, or pretty much anything written in ENGLISH 

    Wow, as I am writing this, I am remembering my deprivation.  I am someone who is very close to her family, definitely a foodie, and a huge book lover.  In Japan, I would get super excited about any random magazine I could get my hands on (even if was Good Housekeeping!) and I would even shell out money to order old issues that had somehow floated down to an expensive import company in Kobe.
  So this magazine junkie is so happy to be around printed materials in English.  I am so excited (well, maybe not that excited) to be able to read nutritional facts of what I eat.  I am so happy to stand in line at the grocery store and flip through magazines I can read, instead of glancing away from the pornographic magazine aisles in Japanese stores. Most importantly, I am so happy to take my kids to the library story time and watch them pick out a stack of books.  It warms my heart.

 I love books in English.

I love O, the Oprah Magazine.  In my opinion, it is the most uplifting, inspiring magazine ever.  She has a section in each magazine about women who create beautiful things and women who quit their corporate jobs to become alpaca farmers and goat milk soap makers!

And I love America!