CRAB APPLE ATTIC

I am SO excited to announce the opening of my own spunky little Etsy shop, a place dedicated to my nutty sewing hobby. Sharing my sewing projects with everyone and actually having them like them is still happily surprising to me. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who encouraged, helped, and supports me in my dream come true. And, thank you to those of you who even pretended to! Please tell anyone you know about the site and feel free to put a link on your blog. I wouldn't be able to thank you enough!

STORY TIME:

Deanne came by this morning and picked up a doll for Sophie. Thanks SO much you guys. This afternoon I was on cloud 9, feeling so happy about the morning events and decided to go to the local "it" store in town to stock up on fabric for my weekly sewing nights. I grabbed the 6 dolls I have made over the last week to take with me. Robin, the woman that works cutting fabric in the store has talked to me on and off about seeing the finished dolls and showing them to the owner. I thought it was a good day to give it a try. If I couldn't meet with the owner, at least I knew Robin would make me feel good about what I had stitched together and give me some "old owl" advice. Robin was SO excited about the dolls and called every creeping, crawling women who works in the store to come over and see them. I COULDN'T HAVE HAD A BETTER TIME!!! After the doting, squeezing, gasping, chatting, and gathering, two of the women bought dolls on the spot, and one of those woman called her son who works as a product manager at a well-known toy store to schedule a time for him to meet her purchased doll! Another woman is having me make 2 custom dolls to look like her girls and actually sent me home with a picture of her children! I was spinning like a top! I left so happy, but ironically not even knowing if I met the owner OR if they want a few dolls for the store. Anyways, here are the dolls I sold today, only leaving three lonely girls in the shop. Hopefully I will be adding some more dolls very soon!

Meg, Jane, Abby

THE QUIRKY THINGS!

When life throws you quirky habits, I believe you take as many as you can get. They make the world-go-round and bring years of laughter. But, when you are asked to share some of said characteristics, only disclose six. I mean, people need to process. Here are six quirky, unusual, different, used-to-be-secret facts about me.

1. I HATE open water and bridges. Going on a cruise should be added to the list of Chinese torture. I feel like the sea will swallow me up because I can't see the bottom and there is no escape. And bridges are usually built over some large or small body of water.......don't like them. Somehow, Josh and I managed to honeymoon Up North. I almost ripped the handle off the car door while we were driving up to the bridge. But after thinking it through, I knew riding in a doorless car over a bridge would make me pass out. I think I left nail makes in Josh's arm. Please, let's tortuously pull wild carrots out of my grandpa's field all day and leave cruising under, over, and across bridges to open water for someone else.

2. I played soccer in College. Our high school team got started my sophomore year and my math teacher encouraged me to try out. I had played for three years in high school and really liked it so again my math teacher (who is now my brother-in-law) encouraged me to be a walk-on in college. It was one of the best decisions I could have made my Freshman year. I met great friends, stayed involved and active, and was physically and mentally challenged.

3. I will eat just about anything and I have always been that way. But I will NOT eat seaweed. I can't stand it. It might have something to do with not liking open water, but no me gusta. I don't like seeing it sway around in it's gnarly ways in the water either. I am a deserted islands worst nightmare, and it is mine.

4. I rescued an innocent goldfish my Freshman year of college from a Fraternity house and gained a 5 1/2 year companion. "Aloha" was the size of a penny when my roommate and I got him and grew to be about 4 inches long as he lived in a non-aerated tank his whole life. He was a fighter. He survived many car rides between my house and school without getting to dizzy and "belly-uppy." I would go back to the dorm after class and find him on the floor, having jumped out of his bowl. I would pick him up, plop him back in his dish, and he would wiggle himself back to life. This happened at least 12 times during his little fish life. He was smart. Always jumping out after we took his "cover" off the tank. My mom renamed him Hercules when I was living in Belize because she experienced first-hand his quick-change act of being dead, then being alive.:)

5. I was OBSESSED with the weather as a child because I was PETRIFIED of and HATED tornadoes. Whenever I played outside, I would spend more time looking at the sky, determining what the weather patterns were and how long we could play safely than actually playing. I am still fascinated with Meteorology and would LOVE to be a Meteorologist. My favorite weather report is "blazing hot, gusting winds, summer day." I LOVE THE WIND!

6. Josh and I follow a vowel pattern in naming our kids.......that is, their names start with vowels. We didn't plan our name-fun this way. If Ida were a girl, she was supposed to be Myra, but when she came out and Josh got the first look at her, he enthusiastically said, "She's an Ida!" So now the fun begins. We still have "A", "U", and "O" to go. They will all be old time boy and old lady names......we love them!

Thanks for asking me, Desarae.

WHAT WINTER DOES TO US......

Or, what WE do to Winter! The insane-o-meter reads: slightly coo-coo with a chance of losing more marbles. Pretty good for the middle of January and below frigid temperatures. Though, I have heard once you start losing your marbles life becomes a play land. Examine the evidence of what we've been doing. (Disclaimer: Our kids really DO wear clothes. They start fully dressed in the morning after breakfast and what happens after that, I am not sure myself.)

Moving in super-active speed: playing, changing the sheets, laughing, jumping and talking. It is great during "chore time." Every child should be accompanied by a super-active cape and a nebulizer machine at birth.

Brushing up on our geometry skills with a little game of human Tetris. Which, by the way, is one of the best video games created and can be played with anything: animal crackers and noses, strawberry slices in one small toddler mouth, jungle animals balanced on toy treetops, stuffed animals in bed with a child, kids in pop-up tunnels..........

Using super-powers and the strength of Superman to thwart bedtime enforcers and continue a day of play.

Playing "Little House on the Prairie" themed dress-up. Emerson raised the white flag of "I'm not even going to try" and let Ida reign in dress-up glory. He and I watched and complimented.
Participating in a culinary lesson by competing in an Iron Chief contest. We have started simple by making popcorn, yogurt-sicles, and cookies.

Report cards

Emerson: A+ in enthusiasm. Needs to improve: Leaving some chocolate chips to be baked in the cookies.
Ida: A+ in eating everything, including plain flour. Needs to improve: Leave something for others!


Riding the Pony Express to the Dr.'s office. Why not, right? The poor horses were probably just as excited as the kids after being "put up" for the winter. Yes, they really went with us.


Practicing "Her-Princessness" by brushing herself to sleep during nap time.
Rescuing animals from the depths of the kitchen sink. Good thing Emerson has studied and trained every day of his almost 4 year life for such an emergency involving his animals.

Transporting ourselves to "Toy Land." To get there you have to ride in the toy boxes, accompanied by your favorite plastic, cloth, or wooden items.

Arranging dinner with her peeps. When asked who was coming to dinner, Ida replied, "Auntie Amy and Uncle Josh. That's who I've been talking to all day." She should have said weeks. She talks to them on her "phone" and laughs hysterically all the time.

Grooving with the TV dance camera the kids got for Christmas from Uncle Josh and Aunt Amy. When we feel like we have officially lost all our marbles, we flip this "marble-collector" on and laugh ourselves back to normal silliness.

Contacting our extraterrestrial friends. This is how you do it for those of you who didn't know!

Training for college. I felt really comfortable teaching Ida how to separate the darks and the whites, but the whole ironing thing got me a little nervous. She's a quick learner, though. I am confident she will figure everything out before her adventures at the University.

Driving lessons on the slick popcorn-filled streets of the dining room. I thought the tractor was an ambitions choice for a popcorn beginner, but Emerson handled the turns with no problem.

We are SO excited for Spring!!!

MEET LIBBY AND TESS

Libby and Tess are my latest sewing projects. I saw similar dolls on the Internet selling for $45 and knew I could make one from MUCH cheaper. Every girl needs at least one cloth doll! So when Sydney invited us to her 3rd birthday party I was SO ecstatic because I had the perfect reason to get sewing again and see how one of said spunky Internet dolls would turn out. I loved "Libby" so much I had to make a doll for Ida, so she now is the proud mother of "Tess."

(Libby is wearing the green dress and Tess is sporting Princess Leia buns!)

CINDERELLY, CINDERELLY

No, we didn't special order her, she came this way! Our little Princess is a very dazzling, very stylish, Mommy-mimic. One minute she was helping me wash the floor in her "day clothes" and the next minute she disappeared for a wardrobe change. This is what she came back wearing. I can't think of anything better to "make the fire, fix the breakfast, wash the dishes, do the mopping, and the sweeping, and the dusting" and to wrestle, and play baseball, and to rock hunt in, can you? We love her tomboy fanciness!

GOOOAAAALLLLL!!!!!

I would rather go to a soccer, baseball, basketball, football, or volleyball game then watch hockey, but I LOVE going on dates. I like the color green A LOT, but I bleed blue and gold, so when Josh brought home two free tickets to a Spartan hockey game, the equation became easy to solve. I would just choose what was most important to me: hockey, a date, the color green, or the Wolverines. My man wins again!!! I would never turn down a date, let alone a free one, even if it requires participating in an alright activity that involves green and white. Some may call me a trader, but I like to think of myself as a women married to a man who likes free, fun events. We had a BLAST!Thank goodness for Grandpa! He is such a good babysitter and the kids think it is SO funny that he doesn't do things like mom and dad. He does things the special grandpa way that makes little ones feel so loved. The kids would keep him at our house if they could. When Ida woke up the next morning, she walked out of her room, saw me and said, "I didn't know you were here! Where's Grandpa?"

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the man across the rink sporting his muscle shirt. We kept our coats on the entire time because it was chilly! He must have worked himself up about how poorly Michigan State was playing and got too hot for his coat.

The ironic part of the night is that we left the game with 5 minutes left in the third period. MSU was losing 1-0. On the way to the car, Josh and I were laughing about the idea of Michigan State coming back to win the game in the last minutes and we wouldn't be there to see it. When Josh started the car the radio came on and that is exactly what happened. Michigan State scored two goals in one minute and 30 seconds to win. We laughed SO hard and then felt like idiots! It is always so fun to laugh at yourself.

We stopped at Outback on the way home for cheesecake and Sydney's Sinful Sundae. It is our favorite place to eat because it has the best of anything you want! It was SO good and turned out making our free date a little less free.

RINGING IN THE NEW YEAR......AT 6:30 PM

The kids and I, poor Josh had to work, celebrated the beginning of a new year with a fantastically short and busy party. The kids do love parties, but they seem to party harder when the guest list consists of more people than just Mom; therefore, our party started at 6:30, after we scarfed down some nachos, and ended at 6:37. Not because it was a boring party, but probably because the kids had no interest in understanding why a new year is a big deal. Emerson kept asking, "When are we going to have my birthday party?" and Ida wanted "more chocolate please". We enjoyed noise makers, party hats, sunglasses, chocolate, sparkling juice, and singing. I can't wait until they are old enough to watch the ball drop and "bang" in the new year with pots and pans! I think the best use for old cereal boxes is to make party hats! Here is the row of party hats I made yesterday to take to my sister's house today for our New Year's Day party. Each person in the family got their hat for a reason: my nephew Jack got the Apple Jacks hat, my dad got the Life hat because he was the oldest person at the party, and so on. It was SO fun and SO funny! Cereal party hats have now become a family tradition and each family member we add to the party next year will be christened with a cereal box party hat! Go tradition!!!