What I've been up to lately.

I went to visit old friends in St. Louis

I learned how to knit a sock

I baked a cake

I made some fruit kabobs (yes those are carrots.  It's what my daughter wanted for her school birthday treat)

I made LOTS of cupcakes

I made a 5 year old happy by throwing her the "BEST BIRTHDAY PARTY EVER!) :-)

I'd say I've had a pretty productive month so far.

Busy, busy, busy

The last few weeks have been a madhouse around here.  The party is over and was a success.  I'll have to post pictures later.  I took two knitting classes: Knitting 101 in which I learned I was wrapping backwards when I purled and Sock Knitting.  I'm about 80% finished with my first sock and quite proud of myself.  I'll write more details about recent events lately, right now I've got to finish entertaining my mother in law and her sister.

Invitations done!

Birthday party planning time!

S turns 5 in less than a month so we're in full birthday party planning mode over here. Sophia picked the theme in September- They Might Be Giants! I am limiting it to Here Come The ABC's and 123's. Her Aunt Heather and Uncle Nathan(This is the brother of my brother Tommy's wife) went to see TMBG in Indy and brought her back a t-shirt which has quickly become her favorite piece of clothing.

We are pulling the colors of the party from the colors on her shirt. I bought a "5" cake pan this week and will be getting the invitations out next week. I'm still working on the graphics for that but will post it when I figure it out. For games we will play "Pin the tail on the Q" and dance party and will probably do some sort of easy craft. Tommy and Nathan were going to do a mini concert but we found out that won't be allowed in the room I am renting at the CIL Senior Center at the Kettering Rec Center. She was pretty upset until she learned that we can play the CDs instead. For food we are going with food that starts with the letters of her name-
S- S shaped cake to go with the 5 cake
O- Orange juice boxes
P- Pizza with
H- Ham
I- Ice cream
A- Apple slices
For favors I'm sending each kid home with "S" and "5" iced cookies. I'm not big on sending kids home with a bunch of candy and crappy little toys. Decorations will be easy- I'm going to print out a bunch of numbers and letters on card stock with different prints and colors and have them all over the room. I swore I'd never do another large party again but she has asked to invite all 10 kids in her class and I don't have to worry about cleaning my house before and after the party so that helps.

An epiphany!

It came to me while I was sharpening about 100 colored pencils for Sophia. The pencils have been around for a while, a collection of hand me downs from my dad, my brothers, and I. As I was sharpening I reminisced about art class and art projects I used to do. Colored pencils were my favorite medium growing up. I liked the way they blended better than crayons or markers. Then it brought back memories of 7th grade art class. I didn't know anyone in the class and sat next to a girl who is still a close friend today. We had to make album covers so we named our made up group "The Beetles" and drew little six legged bugs playing instruments and renamed Beatles songs. It was so much fun. Art class was always fun, there was no right or wrong answer, it was all about interpretation. I never took an art class in high school. Don't know why, mostly likely because none of my friends were taking it. As a nanny, I always had art projects going with the kids. When Sophia came along I had her doing arts and crafts as soon as she was old enough. I even signed her up for an art class at the Magic House in St. Louis at age 1. She loved it. Anyway, I digress.... Back to the epiphany.
I was sharpening pencils, reliving memories, and it hits me- AN ART TEACHER!!!! I love arts and crafts and I love being creative. So I will call Wright State this week and see what I need to do to get started. Hopefully all the gen-eds I took 17 years ago (really 17 years ago, I am OLD!)are still valid and I don't have to retake too many of them. I will most likely wait to start in the fall. I'd like to hope things will be more settled by then.

Formal education of the crafting kind.

So I signed up for a few classes at my local Joann's store. They were offering half off the price of classes so I figured now is as good a time as any to give it a try. While I know the basics of knitting and sewing, I thought it might do me good to know how to do it the right way rather than the "Kim" way. I am taking an intro to sewing class. I took Home Ec in junior high but I've long since forgotten how to read a pattern and change the settings on my sewing machine. I can sew a straight stitch and that's about it. At least until the day I decided to play around with the settings on my machine. Now my machine only does zigzag stitches. Doh! I am also taking two knitting classes- An intro to knitting and a sock knitting class. Again, I know how to do the basics but I never bothered myself with learning how to pick up stitches and make repairs. If I mess up I rip it out and start all over again, which is not always the most efficient thing to do, especially when I am 90% finished with a project. Plus for the life of me, I cannot teach myself how to knit socks. I look at the patterns and the stitches all seem foreign. And no matter how many youtube videos I watch I can't figure out how to do magic loop knitting. And there's always the added bonus of getting out and having adult conversations with other adults. ;-)

Back to school thoughts.

When the decision was made to move to Ohio I started thinking about heading back to school to finish my degree. But in what? I changed my major 3 times when I went before and none of them ever felt quite right. Elementary education, early childhood education, and finally international studies. Each one felt right at the time but once I got into it, I just could never see myself doing it for the rest of my life. I felt no passion or calling for any of those.
Then one day I found my calling and I truly had a passion for it- travel. Ten years ago flight attendants were still glamorous and exciting. I knew with all of my heart it was what I wanted to do, needed to do, even. I gave up on school and started interviewing with airlines. I was offered a spot in a training class at TWA. I loaded up my car and headed to St. Louis. Sure, I was scared and alone but I felt that tug. I was a flight attendant for 2 years and then, well, 9-11. And suddenly the passion died. I was engaged to Joe by that time and planning an Ohio wedding. I hated going to work on high alert, the joy was gone. And my attentions shifted, I wanted to be home with Joe and I started thinking about babies. So when the furlough came I had no problem with it. I went back to what I knew best, kids. I was a nanny for several different families for the next 8 years. When Sophia was born she just tagged along. And it was perfect. I love kids and they loved me. Sophia was an only child but got to experience being a sibling during the day. Now Sophia is older, heading to kindergarten next fall, and there is a good possibility she will be an only child, so I will have a lot of free time on my hands. A nagging voice appeared in my head. (Oh wait, that's just my mom.) I wondered what I would do with my days. It would be the ideal time to go back to school. Now I just need to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

We're off to see the Wizard!

The picture of Sophia in front of the giant Tin Man in the last post is from the Wizard of Oz Museum in Wamego, KS. I thought it needed a post of it's own because it was so much fun! Any fan of the movie or books should definitely check it out. It's literally in the middle of nowhere Kansas but worth the drive from St. Louis. We decided to make the weekend trip before we moved to Ohio. We opted to drive to Wamego first, check out the museum and then head back to Kansas City, MO to spend the night. We went on a Sunday but in hindsight I wish we had gone on Saturday so we could enjoy all of what downtown Wamego had to offer. In typical small town fashion nearly everything was closed on Sunday. Joe was disappointed that we missed Toto's tacos. The museum was just a storefront downtown and when you entered you walked into the gift shop. But in the corner was a little front porch and screen door, much like the Gale household. Once you pass through those doors you enter the Magical land of Oz. There were different sections celebrating each character as well as a collection of all of the books written by Baum. It was an absolutely magical place that Joe and I loved just as much as Sophia, if not more. And there was a little treat for mommy and daddy, too. Just down the street, the one other store open was The Oz Winery. Best concord grape wine I've ever tasted- Witch in a Ditch. Cute little shop and a great place to buy gifts for all of the wine and Oz lovers in your life.

Halloween 2009

S wanted to go with the circus theme this year. So much fun. She just got a bunch of hand me down dance costumes so finding a costume for her to wear for Halloween was no problem. I already had a lion costume for one dog. And my husband had a couple of tuxedo shirts, vests, and a jacket and bow tie. I whipped up a clown collar for Lucky and off we went.

Giving it another go!

I tried this blog thing before but never really did anything with it other than post our daily goings on. But now I think I've got a theme so hopefully I can keep it going. I'm not the most eloquent of writers but what I can do is craft. And I can do it well, to an extent. My knitting isn't going to win any prizes but my Halloween costumes have.
I'll start with Halloween since it was just last week. Last year Sophia decided she wanted to be Dorothy for Halloween and I took the idea and ran with it. I made her costume for the most part. She already had a short sleeve white shirt and while I could have added the blue trim, I opted not to due to a time shortage.



I made the costume without a pattern since I'm not the greatest seamstress and don't really do patterns that well. Besides it was just a bunch of rectangles all sewn together when it came down to it. I watched the movie and looked at pictures to get it as close as I could to the original and I think I did a pretty good job. Thank goodness for Target and their ruby slippers! The silver slippers in the picture are from our visit to the Wizard Of Oz Museum in Kansas. In the book Dorothy is given silver slippers and S is all about authenticity. ;-)
I knit a lion costume I found on the internet for one dog. It was fairly easy and quick with a bulky weight yarn. Just a couple of rectangles that knit up fairly quickly and sewn together. The mane was pretty easy, just strips of yarn tied onto the costume.

For the other dog, who was newly adopted as an abused rescue, I opted for something really simple. I used yellow duct tape on black fabric and attached it to his collar so he could go as the yellow brick road.

The scarecrow was easy peasy, brown pants, blue sweatshirt, raffia. I did craft a horrible hat out of felt. And for the head cover, I used an old brown pillow case with a hole cut out for my face.
The tin man was my pièce de résistance! I took some 1/2 inch foam batting to make a vest type shape. I covered it in silver/grey material and some silver lame. My husband wore a long sleeved grey t shirt. I covered a funnel in aluminum tape as well as an old pair of his shoes and a little plastic ax I found at the dollar store. I found a garden spritzer at the thrift store that we used for an oil can. And I used silver shiny duct tape to cover an old pair of his khakis. Silver makeup and hair spray completed the look. I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.
I wish the pictures had better detail but that's what happens sometimes when you ask a complete stranger to take your picture.