My daughter is the ba-bomb!!!!

Olivia's costume is officially finished, so I'm going to give you a quick chronicle of how I did her costume.

First, I took a punch balloon and made the hubby blow it up. I got a 4 pack of them at Target for $1.99 in the party aisle. We lost 2 of the balloons because they popped from being blown up too much. I covered the balloon in paper mache (flour and water mix). Here it is drying.

Ignore the kids jumping off the couch, it was a hectic month for us..... I mean me, after all I did make 7 costumes!


Second, after 3 layers of paper mache it was finally hard enough to pop the balloon. I cut 2 holes in it to start, 1 for her legs to go through, and 1 for her head to go through. I measured her head for the top hole, and added 2 inches to that, to make sure her head would fit comfortably through it. For the second hole I measured her at her widest part (around her bottom), and added 3 inches to that to make sure she would fit through that and have a bit of room to move her legs. Then I tried it on her.


It fit great! So next, I marked where her arms were. Just like I did with her head and leg holes, I measured her arms and added 2 inches to that. Look mom, I have arms!!!!



I sanded around the holes with medium grain sandpaper, so that it wouldn't be rough and bother her. I also sanded down the large lumps that the flour collected in random spots. It was still pretty lumpy after the sanding, but eh I tried! So after the sanding, the hubby spray painted it black. I used a cheap $.96 can of black glossy spray paint from walmart, and it worked great. We did about 3 coats to make sure we covered the newspaper completely, and ot make it super shiny.Then I just cut large ovals out of white felt, and glued them on the front with tacky glue. The glue dried clear and you couldn't see it when it dried.

Lastly, I made her some yellow shoe covers (which I don't have pictures of ), and a hat. The hat is supposed to be the top of the ba-bomb, and the wick. For the shoe covers I just took her shoe and turned it on it's side and traced it out twice. Then I sewed the 2 halves together and voila! For the hat, I just measured around her head, and then for the height I measured from her forehead to her hair. Then I cut a circle using the lid to an old butter container. I sewed it all together, and hemmed the bottom. For the wick I just cut a bunch of strands of white yarn and used tacky glue to glue them all together. Once they were all glued together and stiff, I glued them to the top middle of the hat. When everything was dry, I painted the very tip red to give her the look that she was just lit lol. So there you have it, my ba-bomb! Check back on Halloween for the complete picture!

Mario Bros

This is what my kids want to be for Halloween, and I'm glad to oblige. Raymond (since he's tall and skinny) will be Luigi (3rd row down, 5th over). Orion (since he's shorter) will be Mario (2nd row down, 5th over). Olivia (cause she's just the exploding type, lol) will be a ba-bomb (1st row, 6th over). Our dog Willy (just cause we can) will be a Koopa Troopa (last row, 3rd over).


Here's the top part of the first pair of overalls. I basically just took the bodice part of a dress pattern (shhh, don't tell the boys), modified it for the back part, and added straps.

I bought the boys shirts from walmart for $4.50 each. Here's Orion modeling his overalls with his Mario shirt on. I did the hats using an Eddie cap tutorial, but I couldn't get the pleats to work for me. I just sewed around my hexagon shape and gathered it to fit. I cut out circles from white felt, drew the corresponding letters, and hand stitched them in place. I didn't take any pictures of the finished hats, so enjoy these with the letters pinned on!


Luigi hatMario hat As you can tell, Raymond was being camera shy lol. That's it for now, stay tuned for my grand unveiling of the whole gang!

Queen of Hearts and Alice in Wonderland Costume Set GIVEAWAY!!!!

Okay, I'm so not one to enter contests or giveaways... I suppose it has something to do with the fact that A) I probably won't win or B) I feel like I'm begging for charity. But I feel the need to enter this giveaway because how adorable would my girly look in either of these dresses? I can see it now, parading down the street with her feeling all regal in a pretty poofy dress. For having 2 older brothers, my daughter is as girly as they come. So here's to chance and hoping, and who knows, maybe I will win!


Queen of Hearts and Alice in Wonderland Costume Set GIVEAWAY!!!!

Summer!

So I've been out of summer classes for the last 2 weeks, and I've been living it up with the kids. The friday after finals I took the kids and their friend Jojo to the natural science and history museum. They had so much fun! We did our rounds of the museum first, and let me tell you it is not easy keeping up after 4 very active kids. Either way, we had a blast and learned a lot. We went into the dinosaur exhibit right at the perfect time, and caught the dinosaur show. It was really a person in the neatest costume I've ever seen, but I had the kids convinced that it was a real life dinosaur. Kids being kids, and with movies like Jurassic Park and Night at the Museum, definitely helped. They treated the dinosaur like it was pet (think dog), and the boys tried to be brave and sit on the floor with the rest of the group. Next thing I know, they brought the dinosaur in, and all 3 boys were hiding behind me while the girl was clutching onto me for dear life. We chased it back to it's "cave" but sadly I couldn't get any good pictures of it, tons of other people had the same idea as me.

After that we hit up the kids center for some hands on play. They got together and all 4 of them cleaned out the excavating pit with buckets and paint brushes. Here's Raymond digging in the pit.

And the girl just loved throwing the "dirt" out of the pit and directing the other kids on where to go and what to do.

And Orion had a blast trying to build a dinosaur skeleton out of bones. He was so into it that I hated to drag him away.

After the museum we headed to the pet store, that way Jojo can get hands on with some more exotic animals. The boys ran around and were holding snakes, tarantula's, and pinkie's.

On Tuesday we went to kidspace museum and had so much fun there too. Unfortunetly I don't have any pictures of that, because it was so crowded there that I had to focus on where the kids were. This week we haven't done much because I'm a bit more focused this week on finding a job. Sadly, my financial aid was cancelled, so I must find work to help support us. Fall classes are slowly creeping up as well as back to school to the boys also, so I've got a ton to get ready for. I'm hoping to get to at least 1 museum this week, and a park with the water play areas, but I'd like to give the house another really good scrub down before we start the next couple of busy months.

Happy Birthday Princess

2 years ago today, I gave birth to my gorgeous princess Olivia. We had her an awesome party yesterday that was full of family and friends and it couldn't have been better. Ollie had a great time and we celebrated her in true princess fashion with a mermaid splash! That is, her party was little mermaid themed, a recent favorite of our Ollie's. She's everything I could have imagined that my daughter would be. So, here's to my birthday girl!

Thanks for being a part of our world!

Monkey

Monkey. No other word has so many meanings. To me Monkey means loyalty, love, friendship, courage, humor, stubborn, compassionate, smart, and a whole other slew of words of endearment. I was lucky enough to spend 14, almost 15 years with Monkey and will every single bit of it. He was my first child, and I credit him to making me the loving mother I am today.

I wasn't there when he was born, but I found him in a pet store. He was taken from his mom way too soon, and couldn't eat the kibble they had in his cage. His eyes were glued shut with gunk, and he looked just pitiful. I was only 13, but I knew he was destined to be mine. I went home and gathered all my change, and walked back to the pet store. With $10 in random bills and lots of change, I walked home with a kitten in my arms. Boy was my mom upset with me when she came home to find him. After begging to keep him, and her agreeing to let me, she asked if we could at least return him for a better looking one. Yes, he had alot of gunk in his eyes and nose, his mouth didn't close all the way, and he couldn't meow, but he was mine. I bottle fed him until he was old enough to eat real kitten food, and he slept across my neck to keep warm.

So many years later, I look back on all the great times we had together, and all of his funny cat moments, and I know I couldn't have had a better companion all these years. He was my confidant who would never spill my secrets, and who was the first to let me know everything would be okay. He loved all of my kids, and never scratched or growled at 1 of them, despite the fur and tail pulling that went on.

Monkey, there will never be another you. Thank you for loving me unconditionally, and for being not just my pet but my baby. Thank you for loving my children the same way you loved me. Thank you for staying as long as you did, and letting me say good bye. I'll always feel like a piece of my heart is missing, and it hurts so bad not to see you laying around the house where you please. Even though physically your not here, I'll always carry you with me and love you forever. Lovey, Boony, Moopy, Mooshy.... Monkey.

Sick!

So the weather in CA has been really ugly lately. By ugly, I mean cold, with some rain, muggy, and gloomy. All in the last 2 weeks!!! Before that though, we were enjoying some early summer weather in the high 80's and 90's. So going from the hot to the cold, to the rainy, to the muggy, and back to the cold, has gotten us all sick. It all started with the littlest Raymond, he had a cold with a horrible cough. I caught it this weekend, at the end of the weekend Orion and Big Ray caught it too. The only one who seems to be unaffected is the girl. Lucky her! To be honest, I'm really happy she didn't get it. When Olivia gets sick, she gets super clingy x 10, and me being sick, it's not pretty for either of us.

Besides that nothing much else has been going on over here. I went shopping with my coupons last week like usual. I stocked up on pull ups at kmart and took advantage of their double coupons, and another deal they had. I did pretty good. I'm making a few things too, that I'm quite proud of. I'm almost finished with the first nieces fourth of July outfit, and starting to work on the second nieces outfit. Then onto my kids stuff. And I'm actually sewing stuff for me, but that's all technical and stuff. If you want to take a gander at what I'm up to sewing wise you can visit my crafty blog www.sewcrafty.today.com, it's pretty awesome if your into that stuff lol. I'm off to go search out more tissue for my nose and maybe take a nap.