Thrifty Thursday: Ruffled Bum Bloomers from a T-shirt {with a half-baked tutorial}

Ok.  A ruffled baby tushy is just about the cutest thing ever, right? Ack! They're so CUTE!

So, I've been wanting to make some ruffled ba-donk-a-donk bloomers for Molly.  This week I finally got around to it.  And I made them from a thrifted white t-shirt (you know those white t-shirts that have hardly been worn because they're a nifty promotional shirt that no one wants to wear) 

I used a pants pattern (folded up to shorts length) and sewed them up according to directions.

I cut out three strips of the t-shirt and ruffled them down the middle.

Next I pinned them to the fanny of the pants and sewed them on.  

 Then I added 1/4" elastic to the leg opening and 3/4" elastic to the waist.

Yep. The only thing cuter than that ruffley caboose is the baby herself.

Now go find yourself a rear end, booty, heiny, some hind quarters or gluteus maxiums to ruffle! 

Link up here...

Funday Monday

So, those of you who know me know that I like to have fun. Lots of fun. And I like to laugh.  A lot.  Yep, fun and laughing, that's where it's at.  I especially like to have fun with my family.

I love to dream up new and silly things for us to do.  AND I also like giving the days of the week themes on my blog, so I'm officially declaring today...

Funday Monday!
*insert throwing of confetti and cheers of excitement*

And in celebration of the event, I'm sharing THREE fun ideas.  Alright, let the fun (and laughter) commence!

Funday Monday Idea #1: Give your baby a box of Kleenex and videotape it.

Alright, this was seriously fun. And we laughed A LOT! Years ago someone told me how they gave their baby a box of tissues for their first birthday and let the baby pull them all out.  Brilliant idea, right? So, I suggested Emmett give this to Molly for her birthday.  He picked out a box, wrapped it up and tucked it into her pile of presents. 

I think it was the highlight of the present-opening event...

Funday Monday Idea#2: Make a Present Ball

Alright, I tried to find the link on the Family Fun site, but couldn't track it down. I read about this idea around Christmas last year and decided we had to try it this year.  The idea is to get a small little toy of some sort and then wrap it up with the used Christmas wrapping paper and ribbon.  And then throughout the year you keep adding to the ball with all the wrapping paper from birthdays and such.  So, THEN on Christmas Even you get to play a game with your big 'ole present ball (doesn't this sound AWESOME?!).  I can't remember the idea in Family Fun, but I think it was the sort of thing where one person starts to role a couple dice and try to get, say, a pair of sixes.  Once they get them they get to try to unwrap as much as the present ball as they can before the next person gets a pair of sixes.  The catch is that the unwrapper has to wear oven mitts.  Ha! This will be an excellent source of fun and laughter, right?

Funday Monday Idea #3: Make a  kite

Saturday was the annual Lion's Club Kite Festival.  We'd never gone before and thought it sounded fun. The kids were really looking forward to it.

The day before the big event was Molly's birthday so we didn't have a lot of time to make a kite, but I'll tell you what, my handsome cowboy is the stuff of legends.  I found this website, How to Make a Kite,  that morning and he whipped to the store, gathered up dowels, a couple trash bags, tape and kite string and got busy.  The boys helped where they could. And we cut it really close (they were judging the kites at one in the afternoon) but we made it and got our homemade kite into the air.

If we'd had a little more time, maybe we'd have (hopefully!) thought to pretty it up a bit with markers and streamers. As such, it was The Great Invisible Kite.

Can you see that wee little speck way up in the air? Yep. That's our shockingly amazing kite. It's called a Sled kite.  I can't believe how great it flew! It never crashed once. Not once! It was awesome. 

Ryan can add Impressive Kite-Maker to his resume.   

As Ryan helped the kids get their kites up, I held the string for our homemade one.  The judges came by and asked me about it (they seemed super impressed) and then asked me my baby's name. She was right there with me in her usual spot...

Oh, and it was a super cold and windy day. So Molly was not having the best time even though I had her in four layers! Eventually she conked out and I kept her warm next to me. 

When they announced the winners of the best homemade kite, we were surprised to hear Molly's name blasted across the field.  Ha! She "won" third place!  And when I went up with her to claim her prize the people got a kick sure got a kick out of the judges giving a baby a prize.  She recieved a month pass to the Aquatic Center and a trip to Funtime Inflatables.  And since she already gets into those places free, someone else in the family will get to use them.

And just for the fun of it, here are some other shots of the kids flying their kites...

 

Weston struggle a bit with his dragon kite. It turned out he just had one piece put together wrong.  It was awesome when he finally got it into the air!

 

 

It was a super fun day.  And even though we were freezing, we laughed loads. 

The Friday Five: Molly

Happy First Birthday to our wee Molly Monkey!  We started out her day with some little presents....a new dress and shoes!  I started a fun tradition with our family a few years ago where the kids get new clothes as their first present of the day...a birthday outfit.  Her brothers and sister got a kick out of watching her play around with her presents instead of opening them.  In the end we had to help her out a bit.

I wanted Molly's dress to be colorful and bright and I have to say I love the whole Holly Hobbie look.  I made it out of vintage reproduction fabrics I've been hoarding.  Can you guess what pattern I used?  Yep.  The lovely Simplicity 5695.  I'm always making her dresses too long which makes crawling a real pickle.  So, this time I tried really hard to make it shorter.  But.  Well....I think I might add a small ruffle to the bottom.  I was also going to make her some ruffly pants to match. And I wanted to try topstitching the tiers...  Ya know what? There should be some rule.  Some law.  Some kind of legislation...

The more children a woman has the more time she should get, the more hours in a day...right? It only seems fair. 

Sam wanted to feed Molly her breakfast. Mmmmmm, banana chunks coated in rice krispies.  Our Molly really is a monkey.  She LOVE bananas with an insane and crazy passion.  She could easily pick the bananas up and feed herself which she did for a while but then they became slimy projectiles.  So, Sam helping her with her breakfast became a great idea.

So, in honor of our sweet little monkey, five pictures of her birthday morning!

Our Easter Staycation

Usually for Easter we travel to hang out with family, but this year our family's were a bit busy.  At first we considered going camping, but it's still too cold around here at night, so instead we decided to have ourselves a Staycation! 

We had loads of fun.  Here are some highlights:

A picnic at the canyon park with friends (technically before our staycation actually started)...

Pizza and dying eggs...

Sam is concentrating on getting the
rubberbands on his egg just right.



We tried using crayons on the still hot eggs this year. And that
was Crazy Cool. We'll be doing that every year now.



We love using rubber cement
on our eggs. Love those swirls. 

Zoe was very proud that she didn't break
any eggs!

One of the things the kids were really looking forward to was a trip to the Aquatic Center here in town. That place is super fun. 

Then a cookout out at Three Peaks...

Our monkey hung out in her favorite place.
Well, actually I think she'd rather I'd let
her down in the sand. But then...well...
she probably would have tried eating it.
Yum. Sand-wich.



Ryan found helmets on sale so he bought one
for each of the kids. They look a bit funny, but
it's good to be safe, right? We don't want
anything happening to those precious melons of
theirs. But seeing as I could probably run faster
than he goes on that four wheeler with them, I think
they'll be okay.



We love climbing all over those boulders out
at Three Peaks. So fun.

We ate took many marshmallows, filled up on roasted hot dogs and creme soda, sat around the fire and laughed about everything.



I took Molly for a small four-wheeler
ride. You can tell from her face
how much she liked it.

Hunting for their baskets and Easter eggs...

A trip to Zion National Park...

Molly is reading the map for us.
I'm not sure she's the best choice for our navigator.

This wee girl LOVED riding the shuttle around the park! It was such a novel experience for her...no car seat, she could stand up and see what was going on and climb all over our laps. It was the best.

Those sure are some fun boys!

We checked out the Virgin River on the Riverside
hike and naturally we had to stop to throw rocks in.



Ryan ended up packing Zoe for this hike
She'd fallen on got a wee bitty
scratch on her arm and so, of course,

this made her feet completely unusable.

The hike took an hour. Ryan is a VERY
nice Daddy.





This was taken at the end of the Weeping Rock trail. What a
gorgeous view from there! (and not a bad lookin' fam if I
do say so myself :)



And the ghost town, Grafton...



Zoe was sure there were ghosts lurking in this house.

We had to keep reassuring here there

weren't actually any ghosts in the ghost town!



The church/school

My great-grandparents lived in this small town near Rockville. It's pretty cool to walk around checking out the old buildings and imagining the pioneers living and working there. 


















And finally a beautiful Easter morning and church...

Dang. Those are cute kids.

Hmmmmm, I have the best husband.
That's all there is to it.

What a great spring break and Easter!