Do I Dare Bring Out the Sewing Machine?

I don't know if it is because the dress has the color orange in it (go Clemson!) or if it is the little birds on the fabric at the bottom, but I love this little pillowcase style dress I saw on Etsy.

The interesting thing is that the seller is not making this dress in completion, instead she is selling it as a do-it-yourself kit. The kit comes with everything you need including precut pieces, designer fabric, grosgrain ribbon, thread, and easy to follow instructions. It says it, "Arrives ready to start sewing."

And for $15, that seems a very fair price for this adorable summer dress. But I am pretty sure it means sewing while using a sewing machine and not hand stitching and this is where I am stumped.

I own a sewing machine. It has been sitting in our attic for the past four years or so. Years ago I had decided I was going to learn how to sew and create all of the gorgeous window dressings for our home. My neighbor even came over and spent time giving me the low-down on how it all works. But when left alone, I couldn't even figure out how to thread the thing.

But this dress has brought the forgotten sewing machine out of the very edge of my memory, and I am considering purchasing this kit and trying to learn how to sew once again.

Hmmm, what to do!!! Does anybody else sew? Is there a sewing machine for dummies? I'm going to think about this. When I finish with the dress kit, it may look nothing like this lovely sample shown.

My Puppy Crazy Daughter

This little swim puppy (yes, he swims in the bathtub!) was a Christmas present Emma received. Anyone that knows Emma understands that the child is a little dog obsessed. She has around ten stuffed animal puppies, and I can honestly say she plays with all of them. Otherwise, we would be quick to make a visit to Goodwill with some of her items. She loves all of her doggies very much and spends one-on-one time with each of them regularly.

The other day she took Swim Puppy outside to swing. (Each dog has a very generic name - Brown Puppy, Pink Puppy, the Puppy Twins, and on and on.)

Emma was very patient and gently pushed Swim Puppy on the swing. He had a few accidents along the way but seemed to be enjoying himself.

Of course, our REAL dog gets very little attention from Emma but maybe that is a good thing. Wish is getting too old to try and balance on a swing.

Coupon Organization At Last!

I have been getting my coupons organized in the style fashioned after the Frugal Coupon Mom. I purchased this notebook from Target (on clearance of course!) and three hole punched my newspaper coupon inserts - Red Plum, Proctor and Gamble, and the Smart Source insert after dating each one from newest to oldest.

Because we do eat out at least once a week and I am always rummaging around in our junk drawer for loose restaurant coupons at the last minute, I decided to dedicate one side of the notebook to just restaurant coupons. No more pulling out outdated, wrinkled up coupons from six months ago. I can just grab my notebook and we can head out the door!

I labeled each of my envelopes to organize individual store coupons and am finding I need to make a few more for stores I didn't think of before: Target, Rite Aid, etc. I then have one larger envelope for general manufacturer coupons.

In the very back of the notebook there is one more pocket so I decided to dedicate that section to all other general store coupons for things like hair cut coupons, magazine coupons, shoe stores, on-line stores, toy stores...you get the idea.

Everything is in one place now and it does make life much easier.

A Charlie Brown Snow Day

Wow! Taking a look at this picture taken this morning you can see why all of our area schools (and some government offices) are closed today. Once again, the hoopla of predicted snow fall caused a massive panic and now we get to spend a day out of school with dreams of our coming make-up day in the future.

I know school systems have to make these decisions for the safety of all schools located within the district and sometimes it affects a few schools and sometimes (in our case) none. I remember growing up in Iowa where snow was a regular occurrence from the months of November through March. We would never get excited about the possibility of a snow day even AFTER it starting coming down until it started banking up and you knew buses would have difficulty getting through on the roads. It just wasn't unusual to walk to school in a foot of snow in your snow boots while carrying your tennis shoes in your school bag. I'll never forget arriving at the elementary school and stopping in the foyer and trying to locate a dry spot on the floor so I could go through the ritual of changing from wet snow boots to tennis shoes. Nothing like starting your school day off cold and wet and slipping and sliding down the hallways from all of the melted snow!

Anyway, it was much different when I grew up and we spent snow days outside building snow tunnels in the banks of snow and pretending we were Eskimos from a long time ago. We generally would come back inside for lunch and then again for dinner. Sometimes we would take a break in the afternoon just to try and dry our hats, scarves and gloves by the floor heaters for a little while before we headed back outside.

So what do kids in the south do on their "snow" days you might wonder? I took a few pictures this morning to share of my kids enjoying their day off.

Well, first of all they get to dress themselves. Emma elected to wear a unique combination of brown dress and pink tights underneath a black short sleeved leotard and completed the ensemble off with black dress shoes.

Ryan took a different route and just decided not to get dressed. Here he is playing the Wii in his pajamas. Excellent!

And the two girls spent their morning in Emma's playhouse.

They moved half of Emma's toys into the small one-room home and took turns taking "naps", enjoying tea at table and chairs, and constantly coming in and out of the little door.

And that is our "snow" day morning. Right now the girls are trying to feed their stuffed puppy dogs real dog food which I am sure Wish is not amused with. I can't wait to clean up that mess!

Snow Day Number 2

Can you believe it? Two snow days in one year - unbelievable! Now of course that doesn't mean that it will actually snow but that there is a chance of snow. Once they had predicted snow might be arriving this evening in our area and leaving behind a 1-3 inch accumulation, schools were calling around and letting everyone know that they will be closed tomorrow.

So it hasn't started yet, but I really do hope it actually snows a decent bit this time. We have our first make-up snow day coming up soon and now we'll have to make up another day. I hope that we get enough of the white stuff to make it worth while.

Another day with all three kids at home - yea!!! Can't wait! And yes, there was a little sarcasm there.

Ding Dong My Dryer Died (again...)

We obviously do a lot of washing and drying of clothing in our household and it will be picking up even more once baby #4 makes his or her appearance.

A few months ago my classically styled dryer (do you like that...classically styled...meaning dinged up, top loading, two cycle choice, and Fat Albert sticker covered) stopped drying for me and we ventured out to the stores, pricing various washers and dryers. We really didn't want to spend that kind of money and Michael was able to replace the heating element in the dryer after carrying it out to the garage and completely dismantling it (no easy feat there.)

The dryer was obviously ready to be laid to rest because it stopped drying once again and I ended up with three huge heaps of wet clothes sitting around my house this weekend. Please don't ask me how I could possibly end up with three loads of clothing wet before realizing the dryer wasn't working - I realize it is rather pathetic. But in my defense, it sometimes took several dry cycles to completely dry clothing and I just didn't count on it completely giving out on me again already.

This tragedy quickly turned to triumph as we packed all of the kids up in the mini-van and once again, ventured out (in the pouring rain might I add) to shop for washers and dryers (no need to have a non-matching set at this point plus the top loading washer gets very difficult for a pregnant woman to navigate the bigger she gets.)

We were able to get these beauties at a great price since the store had ordered too many in blue and had them marked down! Yea!!! I had SO wanted a colored washer and dryer (again, I realize this is pathetic in the whole scheme of things.) But it was basically the same price as the white ones. I am obviously thrilled about these new purchases. They just arrived this afternoon and I am happy to say that I have already completed THREE loads of wash - something that would have normally taken me a good part of the day to finish! And the stinky wet clothes are once again clean. Hurray!

Emma's New Dance Leg Warmers

As I have mentioned before, Emma takes dance class every Thursday evening and a good part of the class requires the girls to be on the floor for one reason or another. They do a tumbling portion and when waiting for their turn on the mat, they sit on the floor.

Well, after every dance class Emma would come home with dirty, snagged pink tights. I tried to wash them but it just wasn't working. I ended making a visit each week to Target to buy new tights which was starting to add up and not fitting in very well with my new goal of trying to save money.

After voicing my concern to the other mothers in the dance class, I decided I would just have to try to find someone selling pink tights in bulk quantities on E-Bay. And then I saw these...the pink leg warmers at Target (where I had gone to purchase new tights.)

The answer to my prayers! Emma loves her new pony polka dot leg warmers and they cover her legs enough to keep the tights clean and snag-free. Now I just have to figure out what to do once the temperature rises. I'm not sure leg warmers are the coolest thing to wear in 90 degree weather!