Flashback to the 80's

The young women in our ward had a fundraiser for their girls camp in the form of an 80's dinner dance complete with a dance contest. Addi loved her leg warmers and huge bow. We had a great time making fools of ourselves in crazy clothes and doing crazy dance moves.

VOGUE!

I feel pretty.

Addi and Hazel were inseparable as usual dancing and having fun.

80's Night Videos

This was the winning dance of the dance competition.

Watch the end, when I hit that little boy on the head, as I am writing this I still have a lot of pain in my neck from the collision. It doesn't look like it on the video but it hurt really bad. Luckily Garrett (the little boy) was unhurt and seemingly unphased.

Addi and Randall dancing to "Lady in Red" as you can see Addi is very dramatic.

I was recording Addi and Hazel all night, they were being so cute, unfortunately the cutest video wouldn't load for some reason but this one is OK.

Hooded Towel: How-To

I make a hooded towel for nearly every baby shower I attend. They are cute, easy, fast, and everyone loves something homemade.

All you need to start is a bath towel and a wash cloth.

To begin: Pre-wash and remove all tags.
(For an even faster project you can buy towels that are already embelished, they have cute ones at Target)

So you start with the best part, embelishing the hood. You can use ribbon, patches, fabric, buttons...whatever you want. Don't worry about the edges, you won't see them in the end.

Use the handy woven strip as a guide.

You can also embelish the bottom or sides of the towel (I don't do this all the time).

Now, find the center of your towel either by measuring or folding and mark with a pin, then measure nine inches on either side of the center pin and mark each with a pin (You cant really see my pins in this picutre, you'll just have to trust that they're there).


Pinch the towel at one of your side pins and pull to the center and match with center pin.

Repeat on the other side, to make a pleat.

(full view)

Center cloth on the pleat, wrong side facing up and stitch the length of the cloth. Make sure you catch all layers, it may be easier if you use a zig zag stitch.

Flip the cloth up and then fold back half way. Pin at the top about 1 to 1 1/2 inches from each edge and again at the bottom corners. Stitch diagonally from top right pin to bottom right pin and from top left pin to bottom left pin.


Turn the hood inside in (you can trim the corners but I never do) and your DONE! Easy right.

The Easiest TuTu You Didn't Sew

I teach (I use that term loosely) a little ballet/tap class for Addi and her friends on Monday mornings. The Spring Concert is coming up so I made these tutu's for their costumes. It is practically a no sew project.

First I took some elastic (I had 3/4 inch on hand) and cut it 19 inches (this is good for 3T-4T) and sewed the ends together overlapping about 1 inch, in a square with an "X" in the middle...I don't know the techincal term, . At this point the sewing is done.

Then I cut 16, 1 foot wide strips of tulle, folded them in half once, then I folded them in half again over my finger to make a loop and held it on the "wrong side" of the elastic

Then you just take the loose ends, catch them through the loop and pull

Then just pull and straighten until you get it the way you want it.

Just repeat until you have the fullness you want.

note: the more strips you add the more the elastic will stretch.

They're really easy and the little girls LOVE them!

The Collection

At long last I have finished "The Collection" I started the whole thing because last summer Addi hated wearing her clothes. When she wasn't in a swimming suit she ran around in her nighties, evidently she appreciates air flow in the hot summer months. So instead of buying shorts and t-shirts she'd never wear or buying sun dresses. I thought I'd make them, and when I got a good coupon for JoAnn's in the mail it was settled.

Please enjoy and don't look too closely there are plenty of mistakes.


One of my favorites

This looks like a tennis dress when she wears it, very cute.

For me this turned out to be a little mumu-ish with the large print.

This is hard to see in the bad light but one of my favorites.

Addi calls this her "Mulan Dress" after her favorite Disney character. Mulan's most attractive feature? her sword.

This is actually a swim cover-up made out of terrycloth, it was the first one I did and I used the wrong needle and broke my machine. Sooo, 1 week and $130 later I was able to resume.

One of my favorites...very mod.

Addi has never had any type of sailor outfit because I thought they were a little too much, this is kind of my nod to nautical...perfect for the 4th of July.

This poor straggler shrunk in the wash and is now a shirt.

CREDITS:

I couldn't have done it without my trusty, sometimes tempermental but always faithful Pfaff. You may be 30 years old and 33 pounds (really) and make my room smell like burning dust and machine oil but I have enjoyed the hours we've spent together and I will recall them as just the beginning.

Cell Phone

BIG NEWS....after 7 years, many preventable mishaps (being stranded at night with a flat tire and the like), and being ever scorned by our friends we finally got cell phones! I am loving it already, why just tonight I called Randall on the way home from the grocery store to have him meet me at the car to unload the groceries....poor Randall as if he isn't my 24 hour concierge service anyway.

Mr. T

I just wanted to post a picture of this cute little boy I've been watching the past couple weeks. His name is Theo and Addi and I had a lot of fun with him. They get along well, actually they mostly ignore eachother until they get in the car and then Addi likes to make funny faces and noises to make him laugh...it's really quite charming. He is a happy little guy and I'll be watching him regularly starting later this summer so you'll be seeing more of him.

(the weird hair-do is from the sunscreen)

Joy School Divas

There are 6 girls in our Joy School group and it is always a party. This day I only had three (which was a blessing), and we learned about our imaginations. Part of that was dressing up, a favorite past time of probably every present and former little girl. I couldn't help taking a couple pictures of these adorable girls!


Heart breakers

Strike a pose!

Addi, Jordan and Molly

The Carny

I am usually not a big fan of the traveling carvals. Mostly because I don't know how much I can trust a ride that can be packed up and on the back of a truck within hours. However, there has been just such a carnival pitched in a parking lot near us for a couple of weeks now. It is right across from the grocery store and on the way to church. Addi sees it all the time and wants to go on the rides. We kept telling her we'd go when the weather got nicer and this Saturday the sun came out for 2 hours. We missed those hours of course and right when we got there it turned cold. We had fun anyway though, I rode the "Freak Out" which I didn't find as rickety as I'd expected and I liked it a lot....especially watching the other riders freak out....thus the name I suppose. Addi had fun on the rides, especially her favorite, the merry-go-round. Here are some pictures and video of some of the rides, please disregard the "cut" motion with my gangly arms on the Crazy Bus.

Merry-go-Round with Daddy

Just a little nervous

Crazy Bus....CUT!

Addi, lately

I know this is basically a blog about Addi anyway, but I wanted to write down the cute and fun things she does everyday to share with my family, but mostly for me...I don't want to forget these precious moments.

- She is learning to write her letters, she is especially good at A's and she'll pick them out anywhere she can find them, books, signs, etc. and say, "There's an A that's for Addi!"

-She Re-enacts her life experiences...also things she'd like to experience.
*House
*Doctor
*Hair-do place (I like this one, I get a free scalp massage, it is actually her pulling my hair trying to put it in a clip but I have a hard head and I think it feels kinda good)
*Make-up place
*Office (she loves to "sign" her name and lick her fingers to turn pages)
*Primary - she likes to say the "scripture" and have you repeat it back
*Play Plano (piano) - she plays everywhere, in the car, at the table, on my leg. She is usually Judy playing the piano and I lead
*Missionary - she likes to knock on the door, and she'll only say the blessing on the food if you call her Elder Payne

P.S. you must have an appointment for the doctor, office, hair-do, and make-up places.

-She is just learning how to do jigsaw puzzles and she feels very accomplished once she finishes

-Her favorite book is The Princess and the Pea.

-Favorite games are Memory and Go Fish



-She often breaks out in a crazy dance that looks similar to a polynesian slap dance and makes up her own jibberish song to go with it
-But her favorite is to dance "like a princess" with me or dad complete with bowing, real waltz steps and a dip at the end



-She'll do anything if you race her to it...she remains undefeated.

-She is rediscovering foods she liked as a baby but had since informed me that she disliked; including chicken noodle soup and zucchini

-Her favorite color is pink

-Loves to "check her e-mail" which consists of jumping up on my lap when I'm in the middle of something and hitting as many keys as possible (often re-configuring the whole computer) before I can get to pbskids.org...her favorite.

-She counts everything, stairs, fingers, number of carrots on her plate.

-She loves ice in her water, just like Daddy