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Thanks!

Piggy Bow Tutorial

After I had Macey the girls in the ward (neighborhood) got together and had a bow party.  I didn't know how to make bows so it was fun to have someone show me how.  After that I went out and bought tons of ribbon and made a bow to match every one of Maceys outfits.  So here is how I learned how to do bows.  I'm sure there are lots of other ways, but this is one way I do it.

First your going to need 7/8ths width ribbon and 3/8ths width ribbon, a needle and thread, hot glue gun and a clippy to glue the bow on to.

Cut your ribbon at an angle and seal your edge with a candle or Fraycheck.  Then pinch your ribbon into thirds about two inches from the end.

Bring your ribbon around to make a loop and pinch it into thirds again.  Pinching into thirds gives the bow some oomph and makes it poofyish.

Make a loop on the other side and pinch again.  Do this until you have two loops on each side.

Once you've got your double looped bow your going to take the center where all your ribbon is pinched together and stick a needle and thread through it.  Be sure and double or tripple knot the end of your thread!  Pull your thread all the way through and then wrap the remaining thread around the center really tight.

So it looks like this.

Take your 3/8ths inch width ribbon and tie a knot in it and pull it tight.

Put the knot over the midde where the thread is and hot glue the knotted ribbon on the backside to the bow.

Now we are going to line the hair clip with ribbon (you can get these at Sally Beauty supply.)  Put a dot of hot glue on the backside and put your 3/8ths width ribbon on it.

Flip the clip over and put another dot of glue on the front side and pull your ribbon around the back and to the front.

This ones tricky.  Put a dot of glue on the inside of the clip and pull your ribbon around an inside.  Now that you've got your clip lined with ribbon and there's no ugly metal visible stick a big dob of hot glue on top of the clip an glue your bow down to it.

And your finished! Except your going to want to cut your ends so they are the matching length. Maybe it's just the funny angle of the camera that makes one look longer than the other. 

Rinse and repeat as desired.

{Thanks for the awesome dishes Virginia!}

Macey looks soo cute with piggy bows in her hair.

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Letters to My Girls

When I was pregnant with Macey I came across dooce.  I followed her blog to try and figure out what the big deal was all about.  I never did figure it out and I don't recommend her site.  She's so crude and anti-religion.  However, the one good thing that came from it was that she wrote a letter to her daughter every month.  I liked that idea.  As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints we are told to keep a personal history.  I keep a journal for me, so why not keep a journal for my children, since they obviously can't do it for themselves.  So when Macey was born I bought a journal and every month I write her a letter in it.  I write down her favorite foods, colors, toys and the funny things that she's doing lately.  I also keep the journal for her to let her know just how much her mom loves her and how much her mom loves the gospel.  I want my girls to know that their mom has a testimony of the gospel.  I hope I get to continue to raise them, but you just never know what the future holds.  I don't mean to sound negative, but really, you just never know when your time on earth will be up. 

When Justin was born his mom kept a journal for him in a notebook and she elmer-glued his hospital picture to the front of it. It was nothing fancy, but she kept a record of his life in it.  When he was five years old she passed away from cancer.  Had she not kept a journal for him a lot of those early childhood memories would have been lost. 

Maybe when my girls are sixteen or eighteen or move out to college or something I will give them their journals as a present, and hopefully they will sit down sometime and read them and feel how much their mom loves them. 

I'm not blogging about this to say look at me I'm such a great mom, because I'm not.  I'm blogging about journals so that maybe some other mom will come across this and decide to keep a journal for her children and preserve their childhood memories.

Baking Bread

Yesterday I got up bright and early (not by choice, my little girls don't know how to sleep in) and made two loaves of wheat bread and one loaf of banana bread.  I always have "bake bread" on my to-do list but it never happens because I don't get around to it until it's too hot outside to turn the oven on inside.  The house smelled so good yesterday though, I think I'll try and get up and get the dough started early more often. Justin ate half the loaf at dinner time last night, so I think I'll have to bake more bread in a few days anyways.  The recipes I use always turn out really good so I thought I'd share them with you.

Wheat Bread

2 1/2 cup warm water

2 T. yeast

2 T. white vinegar

2/3 cup sugar or 1/2 cup honey

5 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour (I do 3 cups wheat flour, 2 1/2 cups white flour)

1/2 cup wheat gluten

2 t. salt

4 T. dry powdered milk

2 T. oil

1/2 cup potato flakes

Mix ingredients in order listed for 12 to 15 minutes in mixer bowl with dough hook attachement.  Let rise until double - 1 to 1 1/2 hours.  Punch down, then shape into loaf or rolls.  Let rise again until double and bake at 375 for 20 to 30 minutes until crust is golden brown and bread sounds hollow when lightly tapped.

Banana Nut Bread

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter

2 eggs

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 bananas mashed

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Heat oven to 350.  Cream sugar and butter.  Add eggs and beat well.  Sift or mix flour, baking soda, and salt.  Add bananas (I mash them up in a pie plate with a potato masher, it seems to work really good), vanilla and nuts.  Put batter in a greased and floured loaf pan and bake for 1 hour.

Stroller Blanket Dimensions

Alright, so here is the dimensions of the stroller blanket for those people that were interested in making their own.  The finished size is 15 inches by 25 inches long.  The straps are 8 inches by 1 inch (finished).  So if your using solid fabric you would cut it at 15.5 inches by 25.5 inches and use fourth inch seams.  If you want to make the top patchwork style with squares instead of a solid piece of fabric you would need 15 squares 5.5 x 5.5 inches.  Once you get your straps sewn together and turned right side out all you do is sew button holes at the end of the strap and then sew your buttons on the top of the blanket and your all set.  I hope that makes sense.  It's just a simple blanket with straps sewn at the top.  But if anyone needs more info I would be happy to go into more detail.

When I was shopping at Walmart this morning I happened to walk past the fabric section and noticed they had over 100 bolts of brand new flannel in stock.  I almost never buy fabric at Walmart unless its a fabric emergency, but look how cute this lady bug fabric is!  I'm going to make a purple blankie for Maddy and a pink blankie for Macey.  I'm thinking of doing mini denim blankets for the girls . . . but we'll see, sometimes I change my mind.

Little Birthday Present

My little sisters birthday is coming up (she never looks a my blog, so I'm safe posting this) so it gave me a chance to try out my new crafty machine.  Macey and I made this cute little box and temple bracelet to give to Kirby.  The fun thing about the Silhouette website is it has a lot of 3-D downloads you can get.  There are a lot of mini boxes to put treats and little presents in (Silhouette should be paying me for this.)  I also downloaded a different, more flat kind of box to put cookies in and take to my visiting teaching people next month - I can't wait, it's gonna be soo cute! I can't tell you how many times I've wanted just a little box to put a small present in and then I've ended up putting it in a huge gift bag - like little hair bows or jewelry or something.  I love my little machine. 

Family Home Evening Box

At Walmart right now you can get these crates for three dollars.  I saw them and I thought "that would make a perfect family home evening container." So I brought it home and pulled all of my manuels off the bookshelves and my papers out of the filing cabinet and put them in.  It's soo nice to have everything in one spot! I didn't realize I had soo much family home evening resources.  The talk Mothers Teaching Children in the Home (I know I've talked about it before, but it was such a great talk) gave me the idea to copy the lessons that I give in primary and keep them in a folder along with my pages of notes and the visual aids I used.  So that way when Macey and Maddy are older I can pull these lessons out and use 

them again.

 

Sorry the picture is so dark, my photoshop program is on the frits right now.  But anyways, doing this gives me more motivation to read every scripture associated with the lesson and to put more effort into the visual aids because I can use them again for a family home evening lesson in the future.  Right now they're to young to understand the Samson and Delilah lesson or the Ruth and Naomi lesson.  I'm pretty sure the lesson I gave Monday night on Obeying your Parents from the nursey manuel didn't quite sink in.  Oh well, I'll just keep trying I guess. :-) 

Been Busy

I've been making lots of stuff lately, I just haven't taken pictures and posted them yet.  I just got called as the Activities Day leader.  For all you non-LDS people, Activity Day is for girls 8-11 to go to activities and build friendships, learn new skills and have fun.  The first activity we do is going to be a big, fun get-together party.  I'm soo excited for it! I have soo many fun ideas for it - hopefully I can fit it in the budget I was given :-) I'll get some pictures taken (after I do the laundry and get back from the library, oh and do the dishes too) of the fun things I've made and am working on and get them posted here.  I know ya all want to see.

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July! My fourth of July crafting mojo didn't kick in until a few hours before we went to a BBQ yesterday. (Bow tutorial link here.)  Luckily I had a little bit of red ribbon around the house.  Anyways, I hope you all have a happy and safe fourth!

Sock Puppets

"Hello, my name is Bob."

All you need is old socks, yarn, felt, googly eyes and you've got yourself hours of entertainment.  Thanks for the idea Mom!

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Stroller Blanket

Necessity is the mother of invention. - Plato

And a stroller blanket, I believe, is a necessity.  I came up with this little blanket because I hate picking the blanket up off the ground and putting it back on the baby (yuck!). Maddy seems to be a little kicker and is good at kicking her blanket off every ten steps.  However I can't let her go blanketless or else her legs would fry in the Southern Utah sun.  Anyways, I made this while the girls were down for a nap.  If anyone wants to make one let me know and I'll give you the dimensions and such.  Yay for an easy and useful project!

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