So, every child has that one doll that is there everything early on. For MiMi, it's her first stuffed animal. I had just gotten out of my c section with her in March of 2005 when Doug's mom came into our room and brought us this little one from his Grandmom & Granddad for MiMi. For the longest time MiMi would sleep with 'her' all the time. She's (miss bunny) has seen some rough times. She's been left at the park, she's been spit up on, chewed on, trampled on, anything else you can mention.

We even momentarily lost her for a full year (eek). While I did my spring cleaning I happened to find her again and tried my hardest to clean her up. MiMi insisted I make miss bunny a tutu so that she would feel ''pretty''. Do stuffed animal's feel pretty?

Well, it doesn't matter, to the children that own them they do, after all children like to believe in things we as adults have forgotten. I had my own stuffy who I slept with every night until I was 13. My stuffy? A big giant polar bear that my uncle Mike brought in on one of his flights to visit us when we still lived in Texas. I called him "mr. bear" and my dad hated him. One day I came into my room to find Mr. Bear was gone, and the culprit? My father, who offered the excuse that "he's filthy". hmmph.

Of course years later he'd never remember tossing old mr. bear away while I was at school.

I was crushed, as a child Mr. Bear was my little security blanket of sorts (don't laugh you all had a stuffy also, maybe not as fond and late into child hood as me, but hey, you know you did)! lol.

So, needless to say, miss bunny is special to MiMi and now MiMi thinks she is "pretty and feels good about herself". And, so I vow no matter how filthy miss bunny gets, even with her dirty right ear, I will never ever throw her away.

Sharing a blog I love..

If you love crock potting just as much as I do, than you will TRULY enjoy this blog:

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/

Imagine cooking in the crock pot for a full year?! HEY I LOVE IT! More importantly I LOVE that the writer shares her recipes, adds photos and then rates them after they are done.

If you have always wanted to try a crock pot recipe but have been unsure of it, VISIT her blog, she gives you the run down on it all,

And, I will be trying the crock pot taco soup tonight, I'll let you know how it turns out;)

My Do It Yourself SNOWGLOBE PHOTO Tutorial!

I've always thought the best crafts to make were the kind you could just rummage and find the materials already in your house. You know, the kind of craft that you say, "I am tight on money today, but want to make something FUN and CUTE with the kids".

Why not do it yourself SNOWGLOBES?! I made one of these in gradeschool and LOVED it! There are TONS of 'tutorials' for these bad boys online but NONE are as easy as mine I PROMISE you;) Not only that but I'm giving you step by step photo instructions to ensure you get it right. Please, if you use my tutorial and/or photos, PLEASE link back to my site. I WILL LOVE YOU forever and appreciate the feed back! Plus it will give me incentive to do TONS more photo blog tutorials.

Ready to make your snowglobe? Let's go...!!

STEP 1:

Collect the following materials (I found all of mine around the house):

* EMPTY, DRY & CLEAN GLASS baby food jar with lid

* HOT GLUE GUN w/ glue stick

* KRYLON (or other spray paint) make sure it is for metal/plastic!!

* BABY OIL (clear)

* water bottle cap (I have blue but would prefer clear or white for this project)

* GLITTER (I have fine, but prefer chunky glitter, it's your choice)

* Q TIP or Popsicle stick for stirring purposes

* Optional ribbon for embelishing (I will NOT use this today).

* Optional, CLEAR liquid nails or CLEAR tub caulking

* SMALL figure, I am using a littlest pet shop bobble head figure my daughter has, you can also get creative and pluck the heads/figures off of pez dispensers (they have sooo many different assortments, from tinkerbell, spider man, and everything in between. Trust me, I know, I have a collection of over one thousand).



STEP 2:
Gather your spray paint and baby food jar lid and place over a piece of paper:



STEP 3:

SPRAY that bad boy down and let air dry for 15 or so minutes (this covers the manufacturers logos and other things that makes it less pretty).



STEP 4:
Gather your figure, your bottle cap and your pre heated glue gun



STEP 5:
Load the bottom of the figure up with hot glue



STEP 6:

FIRMLY press the figure smack center atop the bottle cap as shown (allow 10 minutes to dry):



STEP 7:

Place glass jar atop figure to make sure it will fit.
(the reason I put the figure ontop of a bottle cap as opposed to directly on the jar lid is b/c the bottle cap raises the figure agove the jars ringed bottom enabling the entire figure to show not cutting it off at the ''ankles'' so to speak) My figure is tall but that's okay, also when doing this keep in mind glass will make the object appear larger than it is.



STEP 8:

Fill your baby food jar a little past the first ring on the screw on part with baby oil

(optionally if you are short on baby oil fill it 80% baby oil to 20% water).

The reason you are using baby oil instead of plain water is that baby oil enables the glitter to fall much more slowly, where as water will make it sink really fast, defeating the purpose of a snow globe:



STEP 9:

Add a generous amount of glitter to your baby oil, stirring it with a q tip or popsicle stick to seperate. I used fine glitter but think the chunkier kind looks better:

STEP 10:

Collect your DRY spray painted baby food jar lid, your figure and pre heated glue gun



STEP 11:

COMPLETELY HOT GLUE the entire rim of the bottle cap and place DIRECTLY in the center of the baby food jar lid (allow 10 minutes to dry):









STEP 12:

THIS ONE is MESSY FOLKS! Collect a pile of napkins/a towel/or do it over the sink!

Submerge your figure into the water and screw on the lid TIGHTLY!!
IT WILL OVERFLOW..IT IS SUPPOSED TOO! if it doesn't it will have too large an air pocket!!



STEP 13:

RINSE and COMPLETELY DRY off jar, baby oil is ..well..oily;P BAHAHA!



OPTIONAL STEP 14:

**THIS STEP IS OPTIONAL PENDING HOW TIGHT THE JAR LID IS**
If your jar lid seeps, take the liquid nails, OR the clear tub caulking and caulk tight around the base of the jar where it meets the lid. I find that the beech nut brand baby food jars DO NOT spring leaks. But don't take my word for it, if you want to, better safe than having to re do it..personally they never leaked on me;)


FINAL STEP!!!

SHAKE IT UP BABY!! YOU'RE DONE!

Halloween & Photos

How did I almost forget to blog about Halloween? I know, last month was super busy for me, between random job hunting and field trips and school activities for my little MiMi, it's all been a blur. Halloween was fun, we took the kids to the mall to hunt down some candy.

And of course just a couple photos up for sharing today that I took of them. I really need to get back into the blogging bit. ;x Oh time, where have you gone??

A few things:

Today there should be 27 candles on my birthday cake. You know, when you become a mom the years just fly by. Sometimes I still feel like the niave 21 year old I was when I had first become pregnant with my oldest child. Other times I feel that no amount of job experience could have given me the preperation for anything in this world quite like having children has. Having children has made me more aware of everything, it's made me a totally different person..

That's a good thing;)

Aside the fact it is my birthday today..(last year I was pregnant with Ethan, standing in line at the presidential polls in the rain; as election day always happens to fall on my birthday).

This year...??

Well, this year I learned I am going to be an aunt, and I couldn't be more thrilled.

Although, I must say the local bakery really has got one up on me in the bad grammar/spelling department..I suppose it's too hard to proof read a cake? hmm?

Anyway, congrats sis! I look forward to being an auntie:)

Custom fall tutu dress for a friend's daughter

Here is a custom fall tutu dress I did for a friend's 8 year old daughter. I will be photographing her in it within the coming weeks. I LOVE how this one turned out! I'll have to post a tutu dress tutorial later for those intersted in making one for their own daughter or friends, and hey with the holidays coming they make cute gifts for the little girls in your life:)

Halloween Costume I made MiMi!

Halloween is coming up way too soon. We're a little strapped for cash around this time, and all the cute Halloween costumes are near 50 bucks (I'm way too frugal to spend that kind of cash on a one time affair to swindle candy from neighbors).

So I took to ordering 200 yards of tulle, some some ribbon for 20 bucks and I bought a 5 dollar add on tiger kit from wal mart. (The ears/tail).

I had been dying to make another tutu dress for a while now and so I put together this costume for MiMi in under 2 hours. (It's light orange, black and chocolate brown - which appears more of a clay red by the way).

T