"I don't wanna be at church."

In June of 2010, we traveled 10 hours to Northern California to go to a baby blessing. I never finished this post, and it is a good one, so I am publishing it now.

My sister is 28 years old. She and her husband have been married for five years and they just barely gave me a nephew to spoil. So, of course, I had to make the journey and pay homage to the amazing genetic cuteness that emerged after over forty five hours of childbirth. About a week before our trip, my fifteen year old porcelain crown fell out of my mouth! Almost $600 later, we decided that it would be best to take our more economical car and not our gas guzzling, needs extensive maintenance van. So, my husband stayed with Ben and was a domestic house God during my absence. I would love for him to be a stay-at-home Dad, he makes it all look so easy. I will summarize the torturous trip. We bought a DVD player in Winnemucca for sanity and child preservation purposes. My son Shawn can escape almost any restraint in cars and grocery carts. After the ten hours to our borrowed beds and another hour to my sister's church building, I heard the baby blessing from the foyer while my son J.B. loudly decreed, "I don't want to be at church!" He said it at least three times as we were leaving the chapel. Then we got razzed out on the grass trying to take photos. "I don't want to take pictures, I don't want to take pictures..." Really people! Jokes aren't as funny when they are about you! Okay, it was very funny, the next day. We went back to my sister's house where people kept saying "I don't want watermelon" or I don't want chicken," etc., etc. Just to make fun. What a crazy life I lead.

Broken Toe

Oops! I broke my toe. At least I didn't break it doing something sissy.

I was transporting a dead car battery for my Mom to go get a replacement. I put it behind the passenger seat in the van, close to the side door. It shifted while I was driving my son to preschool. I made a mental note to be careful when I opened the door, just in case. My mental notepad is not a very reliable document! When I arrived at preschool we were late, so I yanked the door open and a large heavy object flew out. The corner of it made direct contact with my index toe and then crashed to the sidewalk. If it wasn't a dead battery before the catapult from a caravan, it was afterwards. It urinated out a little acid from it's trauma. I fell to the grass without any leakage of my own personal fluids, but there was an influx of colorful vocabulary into my cerebral cortex, or wherever.

My four year old opened his door and says "What are you doing Mommy?" Here I was luxuriating on soft green grass on a beautiful sunny day and even though I told him I was hurt, I looked okay to him. So, he trotted on in to school. That's toddler concern for ya! I hobbled his backpack to the door where I received a little concern from the two Moms busy preparing for eight rowdy kids and then I hobbled back to my van.

The good news is that the battery was replaced for free. I didn't mention the plunge to the concrete. Sometimes less information is more. It was two years into a three year warranty, so there wasn't an issue.

To summarize my day, it was pretty awful. My kids weren't helpful, My Mom was over for a while canning peaches, but still hobbles from a knee injury and was having serious issues with it. My Husband was at school from 4:00 p.m. to almost 10:00 p.m. My 13 year old was a walking attitude primarily concerned for himself and terrorizing his siblings before being sent to bed by 8:45p.m. without a backwards glance. He helped about 10% as much as he normally does.

My Little Pony Binder House

I go in crafty phases. I obsess about one craft or another for a while. I get all of the supplies, start a hundred variations and eventually peter out and don't do it again for months. My current obsession is making Barbie Binder Houses. I have started 10-15 and I have completely finished only a handful, because each one is a labor of love. I entered my Lego, Tinkerbell #1 and Asian binders in the count fair and got two 2nd place ribbons and like $3 bucks prize money. Eat your heart out! I spent it all in one place. The little girl that I gave the Tinkerbell binder to won't let her little sister play with her binder unsupervised because it is "award winning." Yes, I do have a binder for the little sister in the works! So, these are some pictures of the My Little Pony binder that I made for a family friend's four year old daughter for her plastic horsies to call home.

This is the finished inside of the binder with a little bed for the ponies. I cut out of one of the flowers from the curtain fabric and sewed it onto a little mauve watermarked pillow to help everything coordinate. It's all in the details. The feet on the bed are little floral porcelain knobs.

This is the inside of the binder without the bed blocking the view. I think the pillows totally match the wall art. I am not sure where I found the pony art, but I will add a link to their work if I can find it again.
I claim "fan art" protection rights.

This is the outside walls of the binder. The original idea for these ingenious binder buildings is from southerncomfort.com. I just jazz them up with couture curtains and fab furniture.

Trapper Keeper

So I don't use my children's real names because the internet is a scary place sometimes, but I still have to share a few brags with the world. I took some awesome (modestly speaking) photos of Trapper at the historic building that I mentioned in my last post. I have to share them because we make really cute people at our house, but they are so wiggly that it is hard to catch them on film. Ah hah! This time I have proof!

Witch Way to Speech Therapy?

I love the stage when kids are really into costumes. I have taken Darth Vader to the grocery store, Disney Princesses to the post office and Superman to the supermarket. This year I have taken a witch (technically a wizard or warlock) to speech therapy three times. We go to this historic building downtown that was built in 1916. I took my camera with me to snap some pictures of the baby and used it on big brother too. People get a kick out of the hat. I think it's super cute. The only time it bothers me is when he is sitting on my lap in front of the computer. It's like staring into a black hole.

Baby Lottery

Time passes so quickly. I wanted to share the fact that I was given an amazing baby boy just one year and one week after my Autistic son Ben moved into a care facility. We knew that it was a miracle to get Ben into one of those homes, but we didn't know that it was also part of God's plan to bring another child into our family. Our son "Trapper" is so wonderfully neuro-typical. He looks and acts like our oldest son. He is observant and interactive and just can't wait to be big. He is in the middle of every wrestling match, crawling over the mound of boys just to be part of the action. He likes to be lifted up to touch the ceiling, turn on and off light switches, speed crawl up the fourteen-step staircase, climb the outdoor slide, and anything else that seems like fun. He's a baby maniac. He says a handful of words and has 5 teeth. He loves hot dogs (chopped up), strawberries, pizza and ice cream. It is so fascinating to watch the development of a person. He is becoming such an individual and enjoying every minute of it. I feel like a lottery winner, having been given a healthy and happy child to complete our family. He is our last one. We made sure this time. I remember how hard it is to keep an active toddler out of trouble. Here we go again. We are lucky people!

Minnie Mouse Barbie Binder House

I am a huge fan of, not so much Barbie, but her house. I always wanted a Barbie house as a kid and never got one. There were four girls, and it would have been a well-used item. So being that I have only one daughter, she has a Barbie house extraordinaire made from an old armoire. I did some research via Pinterest to find inspiration as to how to send a doll house through the mail for a gift and I found this link for Binder Houses: http://southerndisposition.blogspot.com/2011/12/diy-three-ring-binder-barbie-dollhouse.html

I made multiple houses and loved them so much that I am keeping them to enter into the fair. I am posting pictures of the Minnie Mouse version that I made for my daughter's sister from another mister, her best friend from across the street.

I used the white binders with plastic pockets on the front and back so I could have four walls. I made a bedroom, a bathroom and a Gallery wall that can be any room at all.

To find the images on the internet, just go to the "images" tab and look up "white toilet" or "pink fridge," etc. Find images that face forward. If they are turned to the left or right, they look strange. It is sometimes hard to find images facing forward because they look better at an angle to photographers.

I made a bed with reversible blanket, so it can be changed and give two looks. I like to make the pillows two-sided sometimes too. I made a Minnie Mouse rug, but the edges all curled up and it looks silly. Oh well, I tried.

In the original Southern Dispositon blog, she made plain white curtains for her daughter's four binders. I studied Fashion Design in college, seriously considered doing Interior Design and I am a Custom Picture Framer, so I like to really jazz things up.

The curtain is the very best part, in my opinion! It really sets the theme for the whole project.

This is the other side of the blanket. I used upholstery foam cut to 9" by 12" with a thin piece of wood on the bottom and stapled cloth over it. I covered the bottom with felt to hide my staples. When I made the blanket, I cut a square out of the corners the same depth of the bed (about 2") and made tailored corners. I sewed the pillows and my 9 year old daughter stuffed them. We now have decided that 7" by 12" is probably a better size because it still fits two Barbies but doesn't take up so much room.

This is the front and back of the binder. These binders are currently $1.79 at Target. I love being able to do the four walls! The recipient's name could go down the spine to really personalize it.

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So here is my confession, I can't use Modge Podge. That stuff hates me! I tried using it for these binders and everything got wrinkly and ghetto looking.

For this binder, I took 12" x 12" plastic scrap booking sleeves and taped them around the card stock to protect the paper and then I attached to whole page to the binder with double stick scrap booking tape (Recollections brand $2.99 at Michael's). The pages could also be laminated which would cost about $3.00 a page at an office supply store.

I have made other binders in all different themes and will post them as time allows. I wand to figure out how to use this idea for boys since I have five of them. I will have to ponder that.