Christmas party

I know I owe you lots of posts from Disney & stuff but today is Gwyneth's Girl Scout Christmas party and I just had to share what I made!!! Pat's mom came out with a kids cookbook a few years back and I've been dying to make this, when I signed up for veggie tray I knew it was time!! 

It became a bit morphed during baking but it's still pretty fun!!

Box tops

Hello family!

Things are going well over here!  Weather is still in the 70's and still pretty green.  Gwyneth really enjoys school, can tie her shoes, knows the our father and is starting to read quite a few words especially colors.  She earns dress down days for every 20 box tops and Campbell soup labels so if you want you can mail them to us, e-mail me for my address. 

Bennett does mommy & me dance, gymnastics and swimming.  He is doing a great job following directions and mimicking the teachers (better than I expected!). I am trying to potty train but it's more of a communication issue than actually using the potty.  He will go on the potty if he's naked but if he has undies or pull up on he goes in there.  Sometimes he tells me and sometimes he doesn't.  We also do a story time at the library, keeping him nice and busy!

I volunteered to be the daisy Girl Scout leader for gwyns class.  It's crazy because of the catholic school, I have to do double the background checks and double the classes to get started!  I went to a leader meeting on Tuesday and am excited to get started!  We have a parent meeting on the 1st to get co-leaders and volunteers.  Yay for Girl Scouts!

We are going to Disney world end of October!!  It's our moving reward!  We will be doing the Halloween night at magic kingdom our first night.  Gwyn is going to be Maleficent and Bennett is going to be Superman.  I'll be making Gwyns but Bennett will be wearing a shirt with a cape I found at target.

Gwyneth and I went to NYC on Sunday to see the outfits from the American girl inspired project runway show and had dinner there.  She loves going there and playing with all the displays.  

 

Then we took a bike taxi back to the train station, she LOVED that!!

Hope everyone is doing well!  We miss you!

Contest is over

Well I didn't win but I can't believe who did!! 

It said they liked her attention to detail.  Thanks for voting and supporting me I had a great time putting my entries together and wouldn't do anything different. They were exactly what I envisioned and I gave it my best shot!

I'm a finalist!!!

My Bennett submission is a finalist!! I can't believe it! I am so stoked!! Of course it would be the one I threw together with fabric scraps over the one I did a trial run and planned for weeks but whatever I am honored to be in the top 15 out of 200 entries!!  Now please go on and vote for me, tell your friends too!  Vote #8, voting ends Thursday.

http://thecottagemama.com/2014/09/cottage-mama-sewing-contest-finalists/#more-52008

Sewing Contest

Over the last month I have been working hard to create my visions for a sewing contest.  A woman that makes patterns hosted a contest making her outfits for kids and I decided to enter!!  It was only the 2nd dress I had ever made and I also made a romper for Bennett.  I also drew matching outfits for all the dolls as well as made the doll bonnet, doll cap, Bennett's cap and the matching hair bows for Gwyn and her doll.  The contest will be judged by 2 seamstresses that host sewing shows on PBS on the sewing, details, photography and overall look.  There were a ton of beautiful outfits from a lot experienced sewers so I know mine are in the middle of the road but I had an amazing experience and I learned so much!  I would read the descriptions of what other women did and goggle the techniques.  One woman used her cricut to cut fabric carousel horses and sewed them all around the skirt, did I mention they were gold and sparkley?!  It is the one I believe will win, here is the pic:

Just gorgeous isn't it?!  

The hardest part for me was the photo shoot.  I spoke with a couple of my friends for tips and editing tricks.  I took entire photo shoots that didn't save to my camera and had to do them all over again.  Bennett pooped through his diaper and it was all over the outfit, let me tell you it was so awful that it was hilarious!!

We find out the 10-15 finalists tomorrow on her blog thecottagemama.com.  I would so thrilled to be a finalist even though I don't think mine are winning material.  There will be a public vote that counts for 25% of the final score so you can either check tomorrow to see if either of mine made it and/or I will send out another blog to let you know. The winner is announced on the 22nd.

The prize is a serger machine and a bunch of fabric bundles worth about $2000.  I would just love to have a serger, so cool!! Anyway, here are my entries.

I am very please with both of them and will probably frame them!

Breaking out the sewing machine finally!!

I recently bought Gwyn an American Girl doll off of craigslist and have been fixing her up, her hair is still not where I want it to be but I'll keep conditioning it and see how it goes.  Gwyn is insistant on having matching outfits for her, the girl and the baby!!  So I got started right away!! Here was my first set:

Gwyn was over the moon about these and really wanted to go to the American girl store so I booked a reservation next Saturday for tea!! Now I needed a fancier dress set so I went back to work and came up with these!!

I am so happy with how these came out!! 

The pics don't do the fabric justice.  Gwyn can't wait to go to NYC, it's all she talks about and she counted all the money in her piggy bank so she can buy her doll a pet!

Where's Waldo

I discovered that my town was doing a Where's Waldo event by hiding Waldo in 20 stores across town.  We of course had to find all of them!! What a great time!  Both kids enjoyed it, Bennett refuses to take off the pin he earned, no really, he gets pissed when we won't let him wear it to bed!  I learned new streets and discovered places that we can frequent while we're here.  It was the perfect thing for us to do!

We went to a used bookstore, library, ice cream & smoothie shops, hardware store, bike shop, florist, toy stores, & more! The kids earned a button, a coupon at the bookshop and are entered in a drawing to win the full set of Waldo books!  The party is July 28th at the bookshop, the kids can't wait to celebrate!

Gwyn's actually birthday day

So for her birthday Grandma and I took her to the mall to get her ears pierced, then I felt bad that I made her cry on her birthday so she got a smoothie, a doll at the toy store and a ride on the train!! Sucker!!

I decorated the mirror the night before after she went to bed

I also did her door

birthday lunch at Olga's selfie!

Ears are pierced!!

As you can see she is still NOT happy!!

Ok now she is happy again!!

So yes I made this amazing cake!! I was very worried it wasn't going to turn out, here is the Barbie cake story:

Gwyn really wanted a Barbie cake after her friend had one and she saw it at Meijer, but it was like $40 and I was only having Grandma and Grandpa over!  So I decided to make one with the giant cupcake mold I had from her 1st birthday.  Great right?!  This is what it looked liked:

So after I got this base frosted I held up Barbie next to it, nope it came up to her thigh!  So I added in the layers I cut off to level it, nope only to her crotch!  Awesome!  And might I mention this is all after that tea party birthday!  So I found Courtney, Skipper's friend from my Barbie collection.  A perfect fit and a brunette to boot!  Wrapped her in saran wrap and stuck her in.  Then I frosted it with those cans of frosting that look like cheese whiz.  It was easy, but really bad for carpal tunnel wrists!  She absolutely loved it and it was delicious!!

Gwyn's 5th birthday party

I was going to have a party at the house with all her friends but the list got to like 30 kids so I went to a royal tea party at this cute tea house and decided this was the place!  7 friends and lots of dresses and princesses!

Getting her hair done by the princess

All the princesses transformed!

The dress closet!  Floor to ceiling dresses to choose from!

Birthday princess

the hall

Tea party selfie

 

Birthday girl practicing her tea party manners

castle cake (it was actually card board!)

Dancing with her prince

 

I made the party favors myself!  It took me a couple weeks.  I embroidered the handkerchief, sewed the gloves and made the paper tea cups.  I did buy the beads at the Target dollar spot though!

I also bought hand mirrors at the dollar store and got these books on Amazon for like $1.13/ea!

Didn't they come out adorable?!

It was the best day EVER!!!

Stuck inside

So I realize this is really late but I wanted to share with you what we did this winter when it was too cold to go outside.  I had to really get creative, I'm so glad pre-school teachers blog!!

Valentines Day

We hung pipe cleaner in a borax solution for a couple days and grew crystals

Gwyn's snow-woman

Learning to ice skate at the neighbors

Hop scotch, we needed movement!!

My mom & I hunted these heart ice cube trays down for a school function but then they banned anything not from a professional kitchen so I made colored ice and it was fun to color the snow with it

polar bear kiwi crate (arts & craft kit we get in the mail every month)

water beads and bugs

a tray of snow and markers...

the result!

baking soda and lemon juice fizzy fun

I froze some water in an empty OJ container then we put some food coloring on it.  Gwyn added salt and watched out it melted and the color ran, we learned it was faster to use hot water!  She thought it was cool how the salt made divets and the water made it smooth.

Gwym wrote all those letters for the bulletin board outside their classroom for the whole school to see!

Ummmmm?

Gwyn & I made a dollhouse out of a bookshelf and Grandpa made the trellis/arbor bedroom for the top.  I then made Ken an apartment Grandpa made the stairs and I must say they are awesome!

Bennett also like to join in the fun and this is his 1st haircut!

more valentines day

kids valentines for Daddy

We tried to stay busy and it was hard being kept indoors.  We did do some sledding and skating but it was just so cold the kids couldn't stay out for very long.  So glad it's summer!!