sewing room

The third car garage of our house had been converted into a work room of sorts by the previous owners.  We thought it was a meth lab.  It had special ventilation, all sorts of pipes and computer-monitored mixing systems, and water filter systems, plus it smelled really weird.  I'm sure it was all the Breaking Bad watching we had been doing, but we worried it was a meth lab.  Turns out it was a dark room.  The previous owner was a photographer.  Oh.

Anyway, the "meth lab" became our dumping room.  It held all the boxes and things we didn't want to deal with when we moved in.  It was nasty.  

Fast forward to school being over, me being 8.5 months pregnant, and I wanted to start sewing.  I love to sew!  My poor sewing machine had been packed away forever, and I was ready to get it out.  Babies were coming, and I needed to get creating!  The only problem was, was I needed a space to do it.  Enter nasty meth lab.  

I wish I got a true before with all the boxes and junk still in this little room. 

 But let me tell you, this room was DIRTY!  The matte black walls were just covered in dust of some sort.  

 So these pictures are after I've already cleared out the room and started painting those lower cabinets.  I promise, it already looks 58x better.  

And after:

 I still need to get a real table to sew on since this card table shakes every time I start up my machine, but hey, it's a surface!  

Bernina love!

 And I want to paint the floor...

 and still need to take care of the lower wall area, but I can sew!!

I made these shoes and onesies for Tara's baby.

 And these gender neutralish wannabe Vans for our baby.  

I love my meth lab-turned sewing room!

General Conference Weekend

Oh, how I LOVE General Conference weekend. It's a time to stay home and listen to inspired words. I always recommit to trying harder to be a better wife, mother, member of the community, and to try to live a life of service and charity.

It's also nice because we don't have to go to church on Sunday. Not that I don't like going to church, but I can do so much while watching/listening to conference...in my pajamas! For instance I cleaned off my atrocious desk. Really, my desk was so bad from late nights studying and snacking, the kids playing on my computer, sewing scraps, coloring, cords, etc.

So once it was cleared off, I was able to see my sewing machine and have a work space. So I attacked my mending pile, and I was a mending machine! I took care of three pairs of pants, a pair of shorts, and a race shirt.

Exhibit A: Drake's pants. The kids school dress code forbids pants with holes or tears. Too bad Drake has a special talent for putting holes in his knees. There were actually three pairs of pants that needed knee patches, but they had sat there for so long that two of them didn't even fit anymore! Well since these were some of Drakes favorites, I put a nice pirate canon patch on his knee. He loves it!

Then I did a pair of pants of mine and Ryan's.

Exhibit B: Some of my favorite denim knee length shorts. These were in high rotation until Ryan and I decided to go on a double date with Jake and Kaylani. They're so wild, they got us on a mechanical bull that bucked so hard, and I squeezed so tight that I ripped my shorts! Um how long ago was that?? I don't even remember. But now I have another pair of shorts!

Exhibit C: My San Diego Marathon tech-t. It really bugs me when you get your race shirt (especially for a marathon! come on, I worked hard for this shirt!) and you ordered a small, and sure the tag says small, but it's HUGE. So I dissemble the shirt and put it back together again in my size. Now I have a work out shirt that I'm not swimming in.

Also, do you see that back on the counter there? I also made a healthy pumpkin bread today too! And I'll even share my recipe:

PUMPKIN BREAD that's not terrible for you:

1 C Wheat flour

1 t Baking Powder

1/2 t Baking Soda

1/2 t Salt

1 t Cinnamon

1/2 t of each: Ginger, Nutmeg, Ground Cloves

1 1/4 C Pumpkin Puree

1/2 C Raw Sugar

1/2 C Brown Sugar

1/2 C Water

1 C Apple Sauce

1 Egg

2 Egg Whites

1/2 - 1 C Chopped Pecans (pronounced pee-cans thankyouverymuch)

You know how it goes from there, mix your wets in a bowl and your dries in a bowl and then stir together. Throw in a long bread pan and bake at 350º for about 1 hour, 15 min.

Okay, now back to studying. I have a Family Law mid-term this week. :( Oh well, at least next week is October break! San Francisco here we come!

sew cool

Remember our awesome gingerbread house? Well look at it now!

As soon as the last piece of candy was put on it the kids were begging to eat it. Well....why not? So we had a busting party and I think EVERY piece of candy that was on it was devoured.

I'm so proud of my Gwenny! This is one of her favorite shrugs, and the button on it came off. Well Gwen got out a needle and thread herself, THREADED it herself, and then sewed it on. ALL BY HERSELF!!

This girl is so rad, I don't know how I got so lucky!

And here are my children, two feet away from the TV, watching Arrested Development. Oh how I love them!

3 things

1.So this might be a little different than the song I usually sing. And maybe the reason I love Apples today is really because mine sux. Here it goes. I made an appointment today at the Genius Bar because my external hard drive wasn't backing up thru Timemachine. (turns out my external hard drive bit the dust and now there was no point in having it in the first place!) But while I was there I asked what caused these miscolored stripes down my screen that I just figured were wear and tear. The guy looked up my serial number and saw that I was still covered under my Apple Care package and so now I get an entirely new monitor!!! So I'm excited that my originally crappy monitor is getting replaced just weeks shy of my three years coverage from Apple Care.

Ryan and I used to have different views on buying warranties. Now I'm always going to get one.

2.Yesterday I sewed my finger! My friend Jasmyn was over with her little boy, and I turned quickly to say something to him and I sewed through my fingernail and finger tip. I had to pull my finger off. I haven't done that since I was a little girl learning how to sew. And I never told my mom because I thought she wouldn't let me sew anymore.

The picture doesn't look bad (beside the band aid residue on my finger and nail) but essentially it's like I sliced the end of my finger into my nail.

3.Yesterday at Sprouts they had some beautiful Broccoliflower. I couldn't resist. So I made it tonight and it was so yummy. At first Gwen looked at it disgusted and asked what it was. When she heard it was called broccoliflower and I talked about how pretty it was she loved it! That girl loves flowers!

productivity

It's not everyday that I'm so productive, so that's why I get to brag today.

First I was brousing Marshalls for a swim suit. Apparently they're all gone, but I did find a super cute skirt on clearance for 3$. Too bad it was a size 12. I bought it anyways, sat down to my sewing machine and made this super cute skirt a size Kristin.

Then I finally made over this frame. I'm sorry I didn't take a before picture, and I know this color frame doesn't stand out on this wall. But at least it's put together. I'm thinking I will repaint it though to make it pop on the wall. But I love the way the mat turned out.

Then we had leftover pumpkin from our roll last night, and so we made pumpkin bread. But this is not everday pumpkin bread. It's Orange Pumpkin Bread! And in this, you grind up an ENTIRE orange! I was super excited to get to use my new Vita Mix that I'd been saving all my dimes for. It was beautiful!! The vita mix whipped up that orange like it was nothing! The kids loved watching an entire orange get pulvarized into a smooth creamy batter. So this recipe is de-lish. It's what my neighbors are going to get for Christmas. Oh, but I left out the raisins to make it yummy, because we all know that raisins are gisgusting as Gwen would say. (She actually likes raisins though. The nerve!)

Then, we had a fantastic FHE where we started building our popsicle stick haunted house. Again, Gwen is so stoked for fall that we are baking pumpkin items and building halloween crafts. Here they are working hard and enjoying our orange pumpkin bread.

And here is just a sweet picture Gwen took of Drake today. Look how beat up he is!

pumpkin cookies with my pumpkins

With Ryan at school from first thing in the morning till often after the kids go to bed I'm constantly having to entertain.  One of the things we like to do is cook.  Gwen goes to a Montessori preschool and the Montessori method encourages child participation in the kitchen.  So I cook with the kids now.  They love it, and I like getting them excited about cooking.  The other night we made  these super yummy, healthy whole wheat pumpkin cookies from my new FAVORITE blog.  The only change I made was adding a couple tablespoons of ground flax seed, and I did the butterscotch chips as well.  As chief frugal officer of the home, I'm so stretching the grocery bill by incorporating a lot of our food storage.  It is fun, easy, and way yummy with a lot of her ideas and recipes.  

Gwen and Drake are wearing some of my grandma's old aprons.  They love them!

I used to make dresses for Gwen with some of my old shirts, like the one below

It's been a while, but this morning I decided we weren't going to watch tv today.  So after doing some visiting teaching, going to the park, reading, and cooking I ran out of things to do.  So Gwen and I took a trip to my closet.  This shirt I bought because it was way cute, but after the first wash, it was annoyingly obvious that the fabric was not cut on the grain.  So I stopped wearing it because I didn't like the way it twisted.  So I took in the sleeves, added a couple of tucks and put on a new collar, and voila!  Gwen has a new dress.

Yay, she loves it!

finally uploaded some pics

That's right, Ryan is the mustached man again.  Preparing for a Halloween costume....

This was our family home evening a couple of weeks ago.  If you look closely at Drake's necklace, it says "I am a child of God".

Okay, longer than a couple of weeks ago, because the walls there aren't even painted.

Then I found 

this picture from out old house.  It's just so cute how Ryan's singing to Gwen, and she obviously dressed 

herself.

Next up is Gwen at

 her international children's day at school.  She was a Navajo girl.  Awwww, cute!  I cheaped out and didn't make her a traditional outfit, but she's sporting the belt, jewelry and hairdo.

Then our awesome little Drakey boy at the children's day looking like a pimp.  Seriously, his hair looks like that EVERYDAY, there's no taming it.  And don't you just want to rub that little Buddha belly?

And FINALLLLLY something I've been working on (or not working on) for almost five years!  When I found out I was pregnant with Gwen I started making a quilt.  Cutting and piecing was so easy breezy, but hand quilting with out a stand....long and hard!  It seriously drove me crazy everytime I thought about it because I wanted it done, but didn't want to have half machine quilted and half hand quilted.  But I finally realized it's better to have half of it not so nice and let it get some use then to be sitting in a box in my closet forever.  So I broke down and machine quilted the other half (and Grandma's turning in her grave).  Good new is Gwen loves it!  She sleeps with it everynight!  Plus, it's finally a finished project.

Plaid people

I hope ten years from now it's still cool to wear matching homemade clothes!

But they love it now!

(yes we still haven't put our bed together, and are still needing nightstands)

A story about Gwen:  The other day I was at my parents where they always have pop.  We drink it and keep it hidden from the kids so they won't be drinking it too.  Well, I was going inside to grab my cold can of DDP(diet Dr. Pepper), and just to be funny I said to my sister, "I'm gonna go get my beer".  Well of course Gwen heard me and she's so smart, she put it together with me going to get my hidden pop, so later when she saw my DDP, she asked "mom, can I have some of your beer?"  Uh oh!!!!!  I quickly explained that that was not beer, we don't drink beer, etc.  What was I thinking?  She's a sponge!!

A story about Drake:  With our new bathroom/bedroom set up, I've found it's easier to keep all of my makeup in a makeup case and I sit in front of our big full length mirror to put it on.  Drake likes to watch and points to his eye and says "eye" while I put on my mascara.  So last night as I went into my room to get ready for bed I saw Drake had got into my makeup and there were three tubes of mascara open, and black steaks all across the carpets we just had shampooed, and the mirror!  I got Drake out of bed brought him in and explained that that was naughty, etc.  So today I was visiting with the RS presidency who came to meet me when Drake came down the stairs and said hi, and all over his face and shirt were big black streaks of mascara!!!  I explained again and I hope he learns.