leta joy

After complaing that “It hurts!” and crying the first day she wore these shoes, now she will wear them with a smile and no complaints. I bought these TOTALLY ADORABLE chocolate brown and pink Chuck Taylor’s on sale in the spring and was really worried that they were hurting her and I would have to look for something else. She has slightly chubby feet and it is difficult to find shoes that fit her, especially when we are in-between sizes like now. She has been growing taller seemingly overnight the past couple of weeks. She can now reach things she couldn’t before and Bubby asks me, “When did that happen?” When we were blinking, that’s when.

Now I think she was just having a really bad horrible whiney day that first day and trying to mess with the mommy portions of my brain. I have a shirt just like the one she is wearing here (both are Old Navy clearance) and we have matching outfits (how barforiffic, but I can’t help it sometimes) only my Chuck’s are black and pink.

In other breaking news, she dropped off her first kids in the big kid pool on Sunday, an action which has yet to be repeated but it was still newsworthy nonetheless.

Anna of Twelve22 fame has a new book! Pre-order is available now for the Crafter’s Companion. Anna’s blog and creations are fantastic and I can’t wait to get my grubby little paws on my own copy! The book is $19.95 and this includes shipping to anywhere worldwide. Pre-order your copy today!

Bubby was out of town for work this weekend so Arwyn and I had time for our very first dual pedicure.

While I was painting my own toes she told me to “Sit still!”

Her grandma got her this new backpack that she insists on taking everywhere we go.

Bubby is home today! YAY!!!!

Its been a long week, a long day, B is working all weekend and I’m approaching my wit’s end. An excerpt from an email I sent to one of my BFF’s and mothers-in-crime. Do not read if you are contemplating having children any time soon.

“Its 8:00 and I’m drinking a beer and trying not to cry. B’s still at work, the past two hours have been horrendous, and I have another day to look forward to tomorrow (and the day after that and the day after that…) When Arwyn got out of the bath she didn’t want to get dressed and I picked her up and she flung herself back as I was putting her on the changing table and hit her head (on the table) and leg (on the wall) and cried and cried. I felt like a giant child abuser.

We’ve been playing games on the computer today to pass the time and it takes for EVER for anything to load and she gets impatient and then I get impatient and WOW it is just so much fun! She is watching a movie and eating cookies, thank the sweet Lord above, the first time all day she hasn’t been surgically attached to my lap. Its sweet for like, the first 10 hours, and then I just want to sit by myself for a minute or 120.

Did I tell you about her spawn-of-the-devil behaviour yesterday at our playdate at Kid’s World? Evil incarnate, but only to me. I had to remove us from the lunch table at one point with her kicking and screaming to have a discussion. She had fun when she wasn’t around me. Oh yes, and this is one of those times that B was talking about where I have it SO EASY while the kids play together. She wouldn’t eat lunch, she pooped twice and I ran out of wipes, she was spitting out her juice and letting it run down the front of her. And she had 14 fits because I wouldn’t get her a sucker. And Noodle Body across the parking lot on the way to the car in the rain as we were leaving. Screaming the whole way home. And then when we got home the garage door quit as we were pulling in, bent the antenna on the car and the garage door won’t work. I have no idea what we’ll be doing about that.”

So here’s the disclaimer that people say right after they tell you all the shitty stuff about parenting. But its all WORTH IT, right? Right??

This picture was taken in November 1983. My sister had just gotten married that summer and moved to a city FOUR HOURS AWAY, which might as well have been half way around the world. I had a few issues with her abandoning me like that. How dare she get married and move away and leave me behind! Anyway, this was taken at their residence and I was opening my presents from her. The totally awesome Care Bear nightgown I am wearing was one of my favorites and I believe I wore it until the arm holes were cutting of circulation to my arms. I recently asked my mom if she still had that pillow case, because I wanted to steal it, but she didn’t recall it. The hideous purple teddy bear lying next to me was my best friend for many years. My mom reattached his nose and mouth multiple times over the years. It was one of those velvety-type creatures often won at some sort of carnival. The gift I am opening was a set of Strawberry Shortcake lipgloss, strawberry flavored of course. I was going through a Strawberry Shortcake phase and I also had a giant Strawberry Shortcake pillow and a painted figurine that sat on a shelf in my room. But I loved that lipgloss and wish I had some right now.

Oh, and Happy 120 posts to me.

Congratulations to our good friends Barbara and Thomas on the birth of their sweet baby Suzana. I forgot to ask if I could post these pics (BJ, let me know if you want me to remove them).

I collaborated with imollie to create this bouquet of baby clothes. I got the idea here as seen in this month’s Parent magazine.

I’m still in love with the freezer paper. This one didn’t turn out quite as well as I had hoped. I bought the opaque Jacquard paint, which is supposed to be for dark fabrics, but I had to apply three coats of paint before you could really see it. Some of the paint seeped under the stencil, so the lines aren’t very clean. But it’s still pretty cute and a great way to liven up a yardsale t-shirt.

After we gracefully gave up the battle of getting her to sit still, she ransacked the deserted back room.

This picture was taken in my parent’s front yard. Based on the other pictures, I’m guessing I was 5 or 6, so circa 1980 or 1981. Here I am sporting the awesome rubberband-as-bracelet look again. I would guess that my sister fixed my hair, since it looks nice. She loved to yank my hair and burn my ears with the curling iron (remember the curling brush? we had one of those evil contraptions also). As I am wearing a dress, which I loathed, I assume I wasn’t too happy about the situation, which would account for the slightly fakey smirk.

This was also taken in the front yard, facing the opposite direction. We planted those trees when I was small. I remember watering them a lot. I’m not sure how many survived. I look happier in this picture - no dress and I think that is an actual watch on my wrist. On the far right side of the picture you can barely see the tree that I loved to play in. In its time it supplied a tire swing, a tree house with wooden steps nailed into the tree (which I think I did myself), a lookout (it was close to the road) and reading nook. I wasn’t supposed to climb it, but it was really easy to climb and I did it anyway. I think my mom eventually gave up on keeping me out of it. My dad was convinced I was going to fall out and break something, land on the gravel driveway (a possibility that never happened) or the road (not very possible unless I took a running start). What they should have been worried about was keeping me out of my Papaw’s barn next door (fell out of the barn loft when the rope I was swinging from broke). Or the neighbor’s barn across the road (played around farm machinery, in giant bales of hay, on piles of refuse, etc.). Or the neighbor’s pond since I couldn’t swim (split lip open on tree branch, but never got close to the water). I was a bit of a tomboy and I had a lot of freedom to roam around.

I know Arwyn won’t grow up with that same kind of freedom, but I hope she gets tastes of it now and then. That old favorite tree of mine sure did look a lot smaller the last time we visited my parents.

This time I used iron-on paper to transform a plain ole navy blue sweatshirt into a cute shirt. I used HP Iron-on Transfers for Colored Fabrics, because that’s all I could find. I don’t understand why it is for colored fabrics because the background is white and goes on white, so if you don’t want a white background you have to cut everything out, which I learned the hard way the first time I used it. Or I guess you could make the background the color of your fabric, but you have to have some know-how to be able to do that. Whatever.

I printed my image that I downloaded (read: stole) from the internet onto the transfer paper. Read the directions carefully and make sure you print on the correct side.

Then you peel the back off the transfer paper, stick it to your item of clothing and iron. They provide the tissue paper to go in between the iron and your transfer.

That’s it. Easy peasy. This stuff doesn’t hold up all that great. It starts to crack after a couple of washes. But it’s easy and fun. And the worn look is in.

This is a shirt I bought last year for Valentine’s Day that said “Flirt” in red sparkly letters. I think she wore it twice before the letters came off in the dryer. It lives again! I feel so crafty and frugal. I’m the Frugal Craftster.

Here’s another shirt I made using a freezer paper stencil. This time it’s a hippo. I am having fun with this. If anyone wants one for Christmas, let me know.