One More Thing...

I made this one last thing while watching the Grammy's tonight. It's a wreath made out of pages of a book! (I knew I'd find a purpose for those old mass market romance novels!) Part way through, Myles thought he would do a Lady Gaga impersonation (from the American Music Awards). ha ha.

Here's a link to the tutorial if you want to make one for yourself. It turned out really cool, but I used up a lot of glue sticks on this and suffered a few hot glue burns. I think the finished product is pretty cool. I had to snap some quick pictures before heading off to bed. I have to decide where to hang it permanently.

Alright, I'm off to bed. We'll see if my sleep deprived brain will come up with any new projects tomorrow.

Crafty Weekend

We have had one crafty weekend. First off, Savannah wanted to make some ponchos for her webkinz. (Due to the fact that I have not supplied her with a sufficient amount of store bought webkinz clothes.) So, she made ponchos for every single one of her webkinz. And, she figured it out completely on her own. I took her picture her with a bunch of her newly ponchoed webkinz.

Then, last night we remembered buying the supplies, months ago, to make her a beaded curtain for her doorway. It's not actually beaded, but made out of pompoms. The result was fantastic!!

And, I finally finished painting my Dolly Mama frames. They turned out fabulous as well.

Shirley Temple Stopped By...

Last night Savannah wanted me to put curlers in her hair to make it extra curly. She's going to school today as Shirley Temple's doppleganger.

I'm Officially A Winter Hater

This past Sunday was planned to be a great one. I had learned that our local community playhouse was doing "Cheaper By the Dozen" and they were offering tickets to the evening show at only $7 per ticket. I had planned to take the kids. So we drove into Omaha to line up for the discounted tickets at 3pm. Tickets went on sale at 4pm. I was expecting a line. We had gone to participate in the Wicked lottery this past spring and the line was quite long. But, this line was all of 5 people long when we arrived. I still wasn't sure what to expect, so we stayed put and stood in that short little line for what turned out to be the longest and whiny-est hour of our lives.
"I'm hungry."
"I don't feel good."
"How much longer?"
That was all I heard on constant repeat for that entire hour. But, in the end, I retained my sanity, the kids retained their lives, and we had 3 cheap tickets to that evening's show! Woo-hoo.
We headed out to the car and it was snowing. Pretty hard. Flurries had been forecast, but this was more than flurries. Probably going to end quickly and be some sort of fluke, right?
WRONG!
We headed over to Mamaw and Papaw's house for a quick dinner before we had to be back at the play. The flurries had joined together on the road to form a super shiney skating rink. Stopping was not an option, unless you ran into something. Going was also a little tricky. Our first attempt at getting back to the play resulted in me sliding nearly off the road, into a snow drift and careening into a parking lot. We had travelled a whopping 2 blocks from Mamaw and Papaw's house.
With my heart racing and adrenaline pumping, I decided we were no longer going to go to the play. Tears were shed, and we slid the 2 blocks back.

After some begging and pleading, we convinced Papaw to drive us in their 4WD vehicle to the playhouse. (Yay Papaw for your superpowers behind the wheel!) We made it and only missed about 30 minutes. The play was great. Savannah was completely engrossed and it was so fun to watch her enjoying it. Unfortunately, the play is not a lot like the movie and the father of the family dies in the end. (I don't recall Steve Martin dying in the movie. What's going on? Hollywood did not properly prepare me!) So, I was the only person in the audience sobbing at the end. But, a show that can move me to tears must be good.
Then came the exciting part of the night. We had to survive the 40 minute drive home. In the dark. And the ice. And the blowing snow (which was a surprise addition once we'd reached open country. Yay, Mother Nature!) We had been offered the option of staying the night with Mamaw and Papaw, but I had to decline. Mostly because the prospect of going to work in yesterdays clothes with the bed head that always lands upon my head, was worth risking my life to avoid.
It was the scariest drive home ever! Complete white out on ice roads. It was basically the scariest episode of ice road truckers EVER, and it was happening in a pt cruiser! With a snow plow helpfully located about 3 cm from my rear bumper! Myles and I were nervous wrecks, Savannah went to sleep. Two kiddos--completely different personalities.

Most of the story goes like this:
Me: "Crap! I can't see anything! "
Myles: "I don't feel good. "
Me: "I don't either." (going 20 mph, and glancing at rear view mirror) "Crap, there's a snow plow tailgating me!"
Myles: "He's not doing us any good behind us. Are we even on the road?"
Me: "Crap! I can't see anything!"
After that repeated over and over, we made it home. Savannah slept the whole way. I felt like I'd been driving for a week. And my back hurt from hunching over the steering wheel to try to see through the blowing snow. My hands were cramped up from the death grip they had maintained on the steering wheel. The drive usually takes us about 40 minutes. This night it took us over an hour and a half. (And now I know how long it would take to crawl from Mamaw and Papaw's house to mine.)
I'm officially a Winter Hater. Mother Nature is not my friend. Well, not until springtime. We may make up then.

Ice Storm Wednesday or The Day I Crafted up a Storm

Today I woke up to an ice storm. Actually, I woke up at 5am to the phone ringing and the caller id said it was the kid's school. They were calling to tell me that due to the ice storm, the kids were having a 2 hour late start. Geesh. Tell me that at 7am. Now, I was awake and my heart was pounding. So much for sleep. So, I got up, rode the exercise bike, took a shower, played around on the computer, and headed to the kitchen for some breakfast. I then washed a sink full of dirty dishes and made some chocolate chip banana bread. Quite a productive morning. Then I got the call from the school that it was going to be another snow day. Or ice day, I guess.

Unfortunately for me, I still had to head to work. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the main roads weren't icy and I wasn't doomed to crash the car this morning.

I got into a crafty mood this afternoon and made some Valentines Day decorations. I had found this paper garland on the Oh So Crafty blog. It was super easy to make so I made a second one. I made myself a heart template because I don't have a heart punch and because of the ice storm, I wasn't going out after one. After leafing through many old magazines and finding pages with images that I liked and cut them out. After that, I just sewed them all together into a garland and VOILA...

My kitchen is decked out with some adorable Valentine's decorations. Now for the rest of the house...

Pierced!

Savannah has been begging me to take her to get her ears pierced. Sometime before Thanksgiving, she just decided that she wanted them pierced. BADLY! I had thought that maybe we would get them pierced as a Christmas gift. But, then I forgot. And, to be honest, I wasn't all that excited about the prospect of cleaning her earring holes and twisting her earrings anyway.
My ears are not pierced. I had them pierced when I was 6 years old, but the earring got embedded in my ear and had to be pulled through from the back. I was traumatized and have not had any desire to have them pierced again. Well, not until I was 12 or so. Then, I thought I wanted to have them pierced and accompanied my younger sister to have hers done. The plan was that if it went well for her, I'd do mine as well. Only, once I saw the ear piercing gun go up against her earlobes, I nearly fainted. I had to be removed from the room. It was embarrassing. Ear piercing trauma number 2.
So, when Savannah started ramping up her campaign for the ear piercing, I started to get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach again. Bad things happen in 3's right? Would this be the setting for my third ear piercing trauma? I can just imagine the stories. Savannah's ear piercing would have gone smoothly, except her mother suffered a concussion after she fainted dead away in Claire's. Or vomited on the Claire's employee. Or shrieked and made the piercer jump and accidentally pierce Savannah's nose. The potential for disaster seemed great.
But, since I am a mom, I had to suck it up. And, we got the ears pierced. Man, that girl is brave. She didn't panic beforehand and she didn't cry (which earned her 2 suckers!).
And, even better, I didn't embarrass her by fainting, vomiting, or shrieking. I've even been able to help her clean them without needing anti-nausea medication. But, we'll see how the first earring change goes. I've got until Saint Patrick's Day to build up that courage.

Gotta Love 'em

This is an exerpt from a conversation between Myles and me last night.

Myles: What's that huge thing on your face?
Me: (perplexed) My smile?
Myles: No, its big and red and gross looking.
Me: (glaring at him) I don't know what you are talking about.
Myles: Well, you have some huge red thing on your chin. It looks really gross. I think it's a zit.
Me: Thank you for bringing it to my attention in such a sensitive way. I'm really glad that it's not that bad nor is it very noticable.
Myles: You're welcome.

Aren't kids wonderful?
(By the way, I was going to add a funny cartoon-ish picture of someone with a zit here for fun. I googled "zit" and looked at the images. Don't ever do that! Blaacccggghhh!)